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Chapter Text

Footsteps.

Zhao Yunlan stiffened. Wasn't the timing wrong for—no. He should know better than to think he could still trust his sense of time.

The footsteps were coming closer, the soft echo of them in the stone hallway outside whispering in warning. Then there would be the loud click of that heavy bolt in the lock drawing back, and that bright torchlight would come flooding in, dispelling the illusion of being safely hidden where he was curled up in the dimly lit cell. Zhao Yunlan listened carefully, forcing his breaths even.

It sounded like—one person. Just one.

The guards always patrolled in pairs.

Zhao Yunlan scrambled to get up from his pallet in a painful rattle of chains that made him lose track of exactly where in the hallway the footsteps were. He had to prop himself up on the rough wall against a burst of dizziness, but at least he was able to make it to his feet. There was no point in pretending to be asleep—no point in starting out hunched on the floor. He'd end up there soon enough, but spite was a powerful motivator.

There was only one person who ever came alone. He was also the only one to ever come with an entire crowd of hangers-on, but that was almost better. At least then they were both putting on a show. When it was just him—

Zhao Yunlan wished he hadn't finished all his water. He kept swallowing against the dryness in his throat, tongue thick in his mouth.

There was no rattling of keys before the lock turned. The guards needed keys.

Zhao Yunlan exhaled a slow, deliberate breath. As the light unfolded like a fan across the dark stone floor and washed out the glow of the lava in its gutter, he forced the tension out of his spine, leaning back against the wall as if he happened to find the position comfortable. Then the door was fully open, a familiar silhouette in white outlined against the brightness behind him making Zhao Yunlan squint.

"Ye Zun." There was no way to hide how his throat rasped, the name bitter on his tongue, but Zhao Yunlan pulled his mouth into a smirk. His shackled wrists made it impossible to wave sarcastically. He'd tried, but there was no way he could move without drawing attention to the thick cuffs around his wrists and the long chains trailing around him on the floor.

"Zhao Yunlan." Ye Zun practically fell into the cell. Zhao Yunlan raised an eyebrow, and shifted casually to cover the rattle of chains when he tensed up. Zhao Yunlan? Something about it sounded all wrong, coming from Ye Zun.

"Zhao Yunlan, you—" Ye Zun was breathless, and shut his mouth around whatever else he'd been about to say. He hurriedly pushed the door shut behind him, leaving them locked in darkness lit by that single vein of lava, and—okay, that was new, and Zhao Yunlan didn't like new with Ye Zun.

The rhythm of his steps across the floor was all wrong as well—too quick, not drawing anything out. Too direct. Zhao Yunlan straightened up against the wall, bracing himself even as the cadence of those footsteps teased something at the back of his mind. Something familiar, something that went with—

"Zhao Yunlan."

Ye Zun driving a hand through his chest and squeezing his heart could not have hurt as much as that sudden pang of confusion and fear and terrible, dreadful hope. Zhao Yunlan went rigid with it, the air leaving his lungs, white noise obscuring the words spilling from Ye Zun's lips. There was a hand gripping his shoulder and another flitting in to touch his temple, his scruffy cheek—fingers flinching back from the thick band of metal around his neck.

Zhao Yunlan's hand shot out in a jangling of chains, grabbing the wrist under that white sleeve. Stared into the dark eyes looking at him with love and guilty despair, body immobile, letting Zhao Yunlan hold him without a hint of struggle. It was so foolish of him to hope, and dangerous—but when it came to this man, Zhao Yunlan had never been anything but a fool willing to risk everything. "Shen Wei?"

"Yes. Yes, Zhao Yunlan. I'm here—I'm sorry, we have been trying to reach Dixing for so long, and this was the only way. But you—you're—"

Stubbornly alive. And Shen Wei was alive too, despite what Ye Zun had said, and if this was the lie instead then Zhao Yunlan didn't care. He needed this—a moment of this, whatever it was. Of having Shen Wei here with him, of thinking that it was possible at all.

Zhao Yunlan exhaled a shaky breath and tugged Shen Wei close, clutching awkwardly at the white robes with his chained hands. For a single breath, Shen Wei's arms wrapped around him, supporting him—then Zhao Yunlan recoiled as his body panicked at the weight against him, at the flash of silver hair and the slightly sour smell of alcohol-infused sweat coming from the robes.

Shen Wei flinched back. Let Zhao Yunlan sag against the wall, breathing hard, staring up at him. Seeing the raw hurt in those eyes, the way he kept his hands clenched by his side.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Zhao Yunlan—"

Zhao Yunlan laughed, awed. "Shen Wei. You—you're here." Ye Zun could do many things, but not apologize like that. Could not speak Zhao Yunlan's name as if getting to say it was a gift he was not worthy of.

"Yes," Shen Wei said, carefully reaching out to steady Zhao Yunlan with a hand on his arm. "Yes."

"And the others? Are they—" Here? Alive? Zhao Yunlan had seen them all safely through the portal as Dixing trembled and cracked around them. He knew what he remembered. But Ye Zun had told him—

"All safe. All of them, Zhao Yunlan."

Zhao Yunlan's heart went so weightless he almost floated off the ground. All of them.

"But I am the only one who could make it to Dixing."

Okay. Zhao Yunlan blinked, focusing on what that meant for their current situation. First escape, then deal with feelings. He could do this. "Ah, those layabouts and their excuses. I'll be sure to scold them when I see them." When his voice cracked this time it wasn't just from thirst.

"Zhao Yunlan. I need to remove those chains, or I won't be able to—Would you let me?"

Zhao Yunlan didn't nod, because enough torn scabs had taught him to move carefully. "Yeah," he said. "Anything, just—get them off." He didn't bother trying to cover the shudder as he held his wrists out. A chain ran between the thick manacles, the fetters as cumbersome as they were uncomfortable.

Shen Wei studied them for a moment, then reached down and sent concentrated dark energy over the first link of the chain attached to each manacle. It was as if he had used bolt cutters on dumpling dough. The shackles unclasped, chains slithering to the ground, and Zhao Yunlan's arms rose up—so light. So light like this. Shen Wei hissed at the sight of the dark mess of dried blood and bruises left behind, but Zhao Yunlan twitched his wrists back before Shen Wei could waste time they didn't have trying to heal him.

"Last one." Zhao Yunlan tilted his head to the side and winced as the weight of the collar shifted against his sore clavicle. When that made Shen Wei hesitate, Zhao Yunlan snapped, "Hurry up." They needed to get out of here. Both of them. As quickly as possible. There were no footsteps in the hallway now, but there would be. And it might not be him, but the guards with their rifles and their powers would be dangerous enough to the two of them here, now, in Ye Zun's Dixing.

Shen Wei leaned forward, sliding his fingers along the heavy collar until they came to the ring in the back. The chain there was even heavier than the one that had threaded through the manacles. Anchored in the wall, it was one of Ye Zun's most spiteful gestures. The room where Zhao Yunlan was kept hadn't been built as a cell, but the locked door alone would have stopped him from going anywhere. But Ye Zun liked to leave that door open, liked for people to be able to see—And so the collar, and the chain. Zhao Yunlan couldn't wait to be rid of it.

Shen Wei frowned, tugging lightly at the chain without making it come apart. Zhao Yunlan took a deep breath, forcing every aching part of his body to respond, and stepped away from the wall, turning around to make it easier for Shen Wei to get to it. "Here."

"Thank you." Shen Wei reached up again. And again that tug, and—nothing. With gentle hands, Shen Wei quickly traced the outline of the collar. Once, twice—three times, and Zhao Yunlan heard a sharp intake of breath. An anguished sound that made Zhao Yunlan's own breath catch as dread punched through him.

"What?"

"The—the collar." The pure loathing Shen Wei injected in the word should have dissolved the very atoms of the metal with its potency. "And these chains—they are infused with dark energy."

"Okay," Zhao Yunlan didn't turn, didn't yank at the damn chain himself. Shen Wei was still right there. "So can you get them off or not?" And if not, what was the next plan? Other than to not fall apart at the thought of his one chance at freedom turning into a nightmare where Ye Zun had Shen Wei, too.

"The metal is stronger for it, but not impossibly so. But—Zhao Yunlan. The energies. They are entangled in your own."

"So that's what that was." He knew Ye Zun had done something, and he knew it had hurt, but—Zhao Yunlan squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then blinked rapidly. It was the closest he could safely come to shaking his head to clear it of unwanted memories and increasing hopelessness.

Shen Wei's hand closed over his shoulder, with steady, encouraging pressure. "Zhao Yunlan?"

Feelings later. Words now. "Can you get it off?" Clearly enunciated, the syllables nevertheless sounded hoarse to Zhao Yunlan's own ears.

Shen Wei's silence dragged out a second too long. Zhao Yunlan spun around—and saw Ye Zun, and nearly fell against the wall. Shen Wei caught him—Shen Wei, not Ye Zun, for all that the hair and the clothes were his twin's.

Fuck, it was good to move his hand up to his face without feeling that weight dragging it back down. He rubbed his mouth, looking at Shen Wei's wide, worried eyes under those silver brows. "Tell me what is happening." His voice didn't shake. "Please."

Shen Wei's voice wasn't as steady. "I cannot break the chain without tearing the energy apart. And it is—it is anchored in you. In your own energies. It will—it will damage you."

"Do it."

"I don't know how deep it goes!" Shen Wei's anguish was terribly incongruous with all that silver and white.

"Shen Wei, please." Zhao Yunlan grabbed Shen Wei by the shoulder. Let himself take a moment to marvel at having Shen Wei there, really there, not melting like a dream under Zhao Yunlan's touch. Found himself smiling. "Do it. Anything you have to. Please?"

Shen Wei shook his head, long hair rippling. "Zhao Yunlan. It will hurt. And if it goes too deep, I could—it could be permanent."

Zhao Yunlan nodded, understanding why Shen Wei looked so stricken. He pressed his lips together. He shouldn't have to ask this of Shen Wei—it might have been better if Shen Wei hadn't come at all. Or if Zhao Yunlan hadn't done his obstinate best to hold on—if Shen Wei had found nothing to stay for. But he was selfishly glad he had this, at least. It was more than they'd had last time they saw each other.

"Yunlan."

Shen Wei's lips moved to shape his name, but Zhao Yunlan heard no sound. Hating himself for not being able to make this easier, he reached out and squeezed Shen Wei's arm, as if this was a normal conversation and he could get Shen Wei back on topic after some esoteric tangent. "Shen Wei, listen to me. We have no choice."

Under his hand Shen Wei stiffened, and he let his arm drop back to his side. "You have to do it," Zhao Yunlan said.

Shen Wei nodded, shoulders back, chin raised. He knew what Zhao Yunlan was asking, and he was falling back into a soldier's bearing on the battlefield to hold fast against those words. "Hurry up. Break the chain. That way we can both get out of here." Or Shen Wei could, at least. Hopefully. There were too many unknown variables and too little time. Far too little time for all the things Zhao Yunlan was holding back from saying, knowing he wouldn't be able to stop himself once he started. He swallowed. "And if anything happens to me—it would be better than staying here."

"Zhao Yunlan. You—"

"Please. I want you to do it."

It hurt so damn much to look at Shen Wei—at the pain in his eyes. Zhao Yunlan tried another smile. "You came for me, Xiao Wei. All the way here. You just have to do one more thing. Just get the damn chain off, and we can go home. Okay?" He raised a hand that felt bird-boned and feather-light and brushed the dampness from Shen Wei's cheek, angry with himself at how hard it was to do even that much right now, when everything about Shen Wei looked so wrong.

"Yes," Shen Wei answered. His smile made Zhao Yunlan's eyes overflow. He closed them, and turned around again. Trusting Shen Wei.

Even as agony washed through him and the pinprick bursts of light behind his eyelids were drowned out by blackness, he trusted Shen Wei.

Shen Wei had been horrified but not surprised to find Zhao Yunlan locked in metal. Too much for Shen Wei to be able to move him—he knew, because they had tried and tried and tried again in different configurations, making sure they knew the limits of this little-used power of Shen Wei's as well as they could. Organic material and small amounts of metal and mineral would travel—enough to make a weapon would not.

What Shen Wei had not expected was that Ye Zun would go beyond the simple functional cruelty of a captor with a prize captive and use some ability—one Shen Wei did not possess and so could not undo—to pull Zhao Yunlan's living energy into the collar locked around his neck and the chain joined to the wall. It was as effective as it was vile: for all intents and purposes, Zhao Yunlan and the chain were one. It must have caused Zhao Yunlan immense pain to have his energy torn from him and tangled in this object, bound by a pulsing coil of dark energy. And now even handling the chain too roughly might hurt him. What breaking it would do, Shen Wei couldn't say.

But Zhao Yunlan was insisting, and Shen Wei did not have any time to waste. The element of surprise had been key in his success in getting this far, and if he failed to bring Zhao Yunlan back—it was an option too devastating to contemplate.

Still feeling Zhao Yunlan's touch as if those fingers against his cheek had scorched him, Shen Wei tried to look at nothing but the chain. Tried to ignore the nearly imperceptible tremors in Zhao Yunlan's tense shoulders, and the way his frame was too angular and gaunt enough that it showed even under the loose t-shirt he wore. That would have to wait until Zhao Yunlan was safely home. Which he would be if Shen Wei could undo the link holding the collar shut. That would free Zhao Yunlan both from the wall and from the weight of metal holding him here.

It would, if only Shen Wei could sever it and the dark energy bound to it both at the same time, and quickly enough that it limited the inevitable damage. A churning pull on his own energies told him that he was running out of time. He could not wait any longer. He picked up the link between his thumb and forefinger, readying his focus.

At the first bite of Shen Wei's own power it all went wrong.

As he had predicted, the metal wasn't unduly strong, but the energies—it was as if he had ruptured a pressurized gas line in the lab. Zhao Yunlan gasped in wordless pain, then simply collapsed as dark energy burst free and exploded outward. It hit Shen Wei like a thunderclap that reverberated in him even as the energy dissipated. Somehow he had caught Zhao Yunlan before he could hit the stone wall. Shen Wei should be able to feel the familiar weight of him limp in his arms, but it was as if he had gone entirely numb. His body responded clumsily, his energies pulled outwards as if all of him was a dust cloud carried in the wake of the blast.

No. No, he couldn't leave—he had to stay, for Zhao Yunlan. Had to get Zhao Yunlan free. A frantic protest rose in his throat, but it was too late. Shen Wei moved, and Zhao Yunlan was held chained in place.

Shen Wei's cry hung unvoiced in the air as his body was wrenched away from the space where it had been holding Zhao Yunlan. Shen Wei fought with everything in him to stay, and then to return, but even with his full power, he could not have torn free of the force that sunk its hooks deep into his every cell, tearing him asunder and away.

Unravelled, Shen Wei fell upward, through matter and energy—he himself was both and neither at the same time, parts of him occupying two places at once. Then all of him poured into a staticky void in the fabric of reality that tingled with another's life force. A heaving effort of will, and he was wholly there. Was whole, except for the emptiness where his arms closed around nothing in the futile embrace with which he had tried to hold on to Zhao Yunlan.

Shen Wei sagged down onto the floor. A hollow sound tore out of his chest, the tang of iron filling his mouth. He had left Zhao Yunlan behind. He had failed. All their plans, all that practice and patience—having to wait, and wait, and wait, and then having Zhao Yunlan and losing him again—it was pure anguish. Shen Wei allowed himself a few heaving breaths, tasting bile at the back of his throat as he looked down and saw the white sleeves, the curtain of silver hair.

And red blood, from where he had placed his palm on broken safety glass, leaning heavily enough on it for the edges to cut his skin. He could feel the small hurt now—a single drop of rain in the gale of pain battering him at what he had seen, what he had done. What he had failed to do. But the broken glass—it frightened him. Because there were still more people relying on him, and if anything had happened to them—if Shen Wei had let them get hurt, then Zhao Yunlan would—

Coughing with the exertion of it, Shen Wei pushed up off the floor. It was covered in debris and shattered reflective glass. Chunks of it had landed together, forming irregular silver lakes, but enough was strewn around that it looked like an ice storm had tossed the SID's interrogation room. A storm that had taken out the one-way mirror. Shen Wei turned to the door. It hung from a single hinge, and there was smoke curling from what had been some kind of technological panel in it.

Shen Wei's footsteps crunched as he hurried over, calling his blade to him. Nothing—nobody—should remain outside. He knew that. He still couldn't make himself drop the weapon. Not even when he looked out and saw that the corridor was empty of threats.

Walking through the cracked door frame he felt a familiar tingle across his skin, and met with the faintest resistance. But it was like stepping through a soap bubble—ephemeral and gone in an instant. He looked around, walking briskly through the main office, looking for anything out of place.

Still nothing. No trail of destruction. No broken furniture.

No blood.

Exhaling, Shen Wei flicked his weapon away and stood there next to the empty desks. He listened, but heard nothing but the hum of fans, and none of his other senses registered anything wrong. There was a hint of something acrid hanging in the air, and the SID should never be this silent, but there was nothing else amiss.

As his adrenaline ebbed, Shen Wei felt the claws of despair sink deeper into his heart. So one part of their plan had worked, but the other—the most important part, his part—had failed. He knew Zhao Yunlan's people would all be waiting for news, but Shen Wei couldn't go to them like this. They would wisely try to kill him—and in his current state he suspected they might be more successful than any of them would like.

Pulling Ye Zun's robes off gave Shen Wei another few moments to breathe, and center himself around the ache in his chest. He wore white linen trousers and a white cotton t-shirt below. He wished he had time or energy to change, to add another few layers, but that would be selfish beyond measure. The others were all waiting, right outside.

Shen Wei went up to the doors, feeling the seal of an unbroken barrier. Unbroken and untested, because the smaller one inside had held—he must remember to compliment Lin Jing on the machine responsible. Shen Wei raised his hand, giving a pre-arranged sequence of knocks. Outside, voices called in excitement.

Haixing's daylight and all of the SID spilled inside on a wave of noisy exclamations that all dropped into terrible silence when they stopped to look at Shen Wei's face. At his empty hands clenched by his sides.

"It worked," Shen Wei said, with the calm of a beaten general giving a vital report to waiting tacticians. "And I found Zhao Yunlan. He is alive."

Staring straight ahead, he didn't see who cried out and who sobbed and who just exhaled in terrible relief. "I—" Shen Wei remembered the burst of dark energy from the chain, and Zhao Yunlan falling into his arms. "Ye Zun has trapped him, and I—I couldn't—I didn't get him free before the connection reversed."

They must already have guessed, but Shen Wei heard a gasp. Saw, dimly, figures drawing together. Going to each other for support.

"Zhao Yunlan is still in Dixing."

Chapter Text

Zhao Yunlan is still in Dixing. Having spoken those words, Shen Wei could find no others to answer the explosion of questions that followed

Zhao Yunlan is still in Dixing. Seventeen days after he had stayed behind to keep the way home open for everyone else, he was still in Dixing. Still locked up in the dark, still in pain, still parched and exhausted—because Shen Wei had come, Shen Wei had seen everything Ye Zun had done to him, and then Shen Wei had left him there. Left Zhao Yunlan in chains, because Shen Wei had been too slow and too weak to free him. If only he had not hesitated he could have brought Zhao Yunlan here, to freedom. To be healed and nourished and kept safe the way Shen Wei ought to have kept him safe all along.

Zhao Yunlan is still in Dixing because Shen Wei had failed him twice, now. Shen Wei had failed Zhao Yunlan, and he had failed those around him who were clamoring for more information, calling his name, repeating it carefully as if there was something Shen Wei had missed, or forgotten, but he remembered all that he had seen—and more. Shen Wei could have told them the exact location of every bruise on Zhao Yunlan's skin, could have shared the feelings Zhao Yunlan had tried to keep hidden even from him, but that had been there to read in every shift of his expressive face. Could have repeated word for word every single thing that Zhao Yunlan had said. Things like hurry and we can go home, unquestioningly trusting Shen Wei to free him.

And instead—instead—

Shen Wei was no longer standing at the edge of the light shining through the SID's front entrance. He was in an office chair with wheels, Chu Shuzhi's hand clamped around his shoulder with the precise degree of force required to keep him upright. They were by the table in the main office—the others were all gathered in a blur of worried faces, though they seemed set on milling around rather than sitting down.

"Professor Shen? Some tea." Wang Zheng lifted his hand—the warm pressure of her living flesh brought a second's confusion before Shen Wei remembered her newfound corporeality—and wrapped it around a tall, steaming glass. The fragrance of the green tea and the heat against his fingertips came into strangely sharp focus. Shen Wei hadn't even known the SID stocked such high-grade Dragon Well leaves.

Shen Wei murmured a polite thanks, and sipped. Chu Shuzhi removed his hand. There was silence, now—had been for a while? Or at least the voices he heard were no longer directing their questions to him.

The water might have been a bit too hot, because the excellent tea had a bitter edge to it. Wang Zheng must be distracted. Shen Wei put the tea down, unable to take another swallow. But he could leave it to cool, and until then—

With a tinkling of bells a furry missile launched itself at him. Shen Wei was so surprised he didn't even raise a hand, and found himself with a lapful of heavy black cat.

Claws dug into his thighs through the thin linen trousers as Da Qing kept himself from sliding off. The sting of pain was a brief curiosity, and then the Yashou was rearing up on his hind legs, front paws against Shen Wei's chest. Shen Wei looked down at the round face to question what was happening, but Da Qing wasn't paying any attention to him. Or rather—Da Qing wasn't looking at him, being too busy sniffing his shirt and his neck and his jaw, whiskers tickling Shen Wei's skin.

Da Qing froze, staring at nothing, and then headbutted Shen Wei's shoulder before sinking down into his lap.

"Da Qing?" Shen Wei asked carefully.

"Lao Zhao," Da Qing said by way of explanation. His flanks were heaving, as if the perfectly normal cat activity of jumping and sniffing had exhausted him. "You found him. You really found him. He's alive."

"Yes," Shen Wei answered. He couldn't say anything else. Could offer no reassurances—but couldn't bring himself to point out that time had passed, and they didn't know if that was still true. Just because he was—just because he had been—was no guarantee that Ye Zun wasn't going to—

"Then we'll try again."

Da Qing was the SID's deputy chief, but Zhu Hong was the Yashou chieftain now, and her voice was steady and determined. Shen Wei looked up. She was right there, hip cocked against the table, arms crossed. "Professor Shen. Can you tell us what happened?"

Zhu Hong looked as perfectly composed as she sounded. Then her gaze—it didn't so much soften as waver, and Shen Wei noticed a small clump of mascara had smudged where she had rubbed her eyes. "Or if you need a moment—"

"No. No, thank you Zhu Hong. Please, I will share my report."

Zhu Hong nodded. "Thank you," she said to him, then turned to the room and clapped. "Everyone sit."

The SID scrambled into order with remarkable efficiency. On his way to grab a chair, Xiao Guo stopped next to Shen Wei. "Um, Professor Shen? Maybe you want to—I mean, we all know it's you, but it's just—"

Shen Wei looked up at the young man to see his eyes darting between him, the top of his head, and Lao Chu, who looked like a startled thundercloud. "Um. Your hair?"

It wasn't until Guo Changcheng mentioned it that Shen Wei realized he had forgotten about his disguise. Had remembered to change out of the stolen robes, but not change anything else about himself. "Ah, yes. Thank you," he said to Xiao Guo, who scurried off to squeeze in between Zhu Hong and Lao Chu.

Shen Wei touched a hand to his hair—unlike the robes it was not an external disguise, but all his own. His, only silver, and long. It was a power Shen Wei had learned long after he lost Ye Zun. Not that it would have mattered when they were still together—still alike enough to be taken for the same child. He had to close his eyes to focus. He could feel sweat prickling his forehead, could feel his chest burning as the spike of dark energy struck against the light energy he was keeping confined like flint against steel. There were always sparks, but he suffocated them—all of them, even though it took another two breaths to manage. He didn't need to comb his fingers through his now-short hair to know he had been successful. He did anyway, and felt better for it.

When Shen Wei opened his eyes and looked back up, Zhu Hong was watching him carefully. She was not the only one, though the others at least blinked when he caught them at it. "May I ask what happened here?"

"We think things went according to plan," Zhu Hong said.

Lin Jing grimaced. "Yeah, except for the damage. You saw the interrogation room."

"But your barrier held fast," Shen Wei said.

Lin Jing shrugged. It was a very modest response, for Lin Jing.

"That's what we get for having Ye Zun visiting," Da Qing spat, speaking from Shen Wei's lap. Despite the not insignificant weight of the feline, Shen Wei had forgotten that Da Qing had chosen him as a perch for the duration.

"That part worked, even with the distance to Dixing." Zhu Hong summarized. "He came here, and you…"

Shen Wei had opened his eyes to a desk strewn with papers in an empty room. That had been the most important thing—scanning for other presences, to know if he could stay safely or not. But he had been alone, and that had calmed his racing heart. At his elbow he had found a tray bearing elegant dishes mostly left to go cold—the sweets had been eaten, but not much else—and an empty stoneware bottle. There was a prickling pull on his body, as if it was caught in a dream trying to return to waking, but he had resisted it. "I took Ye Zun's place in his chambers," Shen Wei said.

"How much did you learn of what is happening down there?" That was the Yashou chieftain again, asking for those of her people who had ties to Dixing.

Shen Wei would have leaned his hands against his knees to steady himself. But his lap was full of cat, so instead he placed them gently on Da Qing's back. Fearing discovery and feeling the pull of Haixing with every step he took in Ye Zun's place, he had not been free to wander. But he had scanned the scraps of paperwork—draft edicts and crumpled letters—and he had seen the faces he passed in the palace halls. "The political situation is—precarious. Ye Zun rules through fear, but fear is not keeping the people fed, or rebuilding what was damaged by the power of the Hallows unleashed."

"People are starving?" Xiao Guo sounded horrified at the idea.

"There are shortages," Shen Wei said. "And so people are moving against Ye Zun. The guards are fully loyal to him, and have been ordered to quell the unrest with any means necessary. Lives are being lost, and the cells of Dijun Palace are full." Shen Wei's heart ached for his people. For everyone he had been unable to protect, even as he walked among them for a moment. He could have ordered all prisoners released—could have made everyone think Ye Zun had experienced a change of heart. But that would only last until the true Ye Zun returned, and if he could not take his ire out on Shen Wei, then those same people he had wanted to save would suffer.

Grim silence settled over the table, Lao Chu looking so murderous it made a marked difference to his regular countenance.

Lin Jing broke it first. "So all that talk, and he's just made Dixing worse." The vehemence in Lin Jing's tone almost surprised Shen Wei, until he realized the man's anger still held an edge of raw grief. They had gotten Wang Zheng and Sang Zan back through the Hallows because their Awl-bestowed energies were fundamentally incompatible with Ye Zun's own. Sha Ya, however, had been fully Dixingren—Ye Zun had taken her life to fuel his power, as he had so many others.

"Yes," Shen Wei agreed. The only mercy was that Ye Zun was at least attempting to govern Dixing, rather than moving through it like a shark through minnows.

"And Zhao Yunlan?" The way Zhu Hong said his name—she had been holding this question back since she had first asked for a report on Dixing. Shen Wei saw her apprehensive eagerness mirrored in the faces around the table when she spoke. They had all done everything in their power to bring this plan to fruition. Had trusted Shen Wei to return their chief—their friend. Trusted Shen Wei to share what he knew, and not sit there, frozen, trying to remember how to breathe.

Da Qing meowed a feline complaint, squirming, and Shen Wei unclenched his fists, smoothing ruffled fur in wordless apology. "Zhao Yunlan is not with the other prisoners. They are kept together, and he is alone."

Alone. In the dark, where he had already been for weeks on end. And Shen Wei had left him.

Nobody said anything when Shen Wei didn't immediately continue. He stroked Da Qing's black fur, soft against his palms. Warm.

"There are guest quarters near the receiving hall—all empty now, save for one locked room." The lava conduit would have made it feel almost homey, if it hadn't been for—for everything else about that room. "And Ye Zun has—" Shen Wei inhaled, and felt the welcome burn of rage. Ye Zun had done this. For all his own failures, and his own guilt, the hands that had put Zhao Yunlan in chains had not been Shen Wei's. Drawing strength from his anger, Shen Wei looked up, at the others. Wanting them to know. Wanting to feel their fury, too—and not only at himself, though he was well deserving of it. "Ye Zun has him chained to the wall. He was in manacles, too—those I could dispose of—but there was a chain attached to a metal collar around Zhao Yunlan's neck, both run through with dark energy…" When Shen Wei paused this time, it wasn't because his own voice wouldn't hold, but because of the gratifying outburst of outraged profanities.

"Oh shit," Lin Jing said, his head snapping up. "Was that what cut the connection short so quickly?"

"Yes." Very good, Shen Wei would have added if this had been one of his lectures. Lin Jing couldn't wield dark energy himself. Couldn't even see it, unless Shen Wei gave it form. But he understood the workings of it, and had grasped what would happen if one undid the physical aspect of such a binding without taking enough care with the energy itself. "Yes, I'm afraid the connection couldn't hold under the influx of dark energy not under my control."

Shen Wei had managed to catch Zhao Yunlan, but not stop the uncontrolled energy from crashing against his own and upsetting the delicate balance he was maintaining to stay where he was while Ye Zun took his place on the surface. "I attempted to cut the chains, to get him out, and there was a backlash. I should have...If I hadn't…"

"You'll do it next time." It was Zhu Hong's voice, cutting through the silence between Shen Wei's halting words. "It wasn't part of the plan. You couldn't have known."

Shen Wei wanted to protest—he should have guessed, at least. But Zhu Hong fixed him with a stare as intent as if she meant to try her hypnosis on him again, and kept speaking. "Next time. As soon as we can get everything set up again—we're not giving up, Professor Shen. Not on Zhao Yunlan, and not on Dixing."

Other voices rose in admiration and assent. The SID had not lost heart. Zhu Hong held Shen Wei's eyes until he nodded.

"You should rest, Professor Shen." Zhu Hong didn't quite make it an order, but her voice was brisk. Shen Wei knew she was right—he was drained to the point of exhaustion, and his powers were a key part of the plan. And Zhu Hong was within her rights to make sure he kept out of the way as the SID worked, rather than reminding them all with his presence that he had come back empty-handed.

Unfortunately Shen Wei couldn't fully withdraw from the SID, not without wasting valuable energy going home. (No, not home. The apartment without Zhao Yunlan was just—empty rooms.) "I will be in his—in the chief's office if you need me," he said, rising. One of Zhao Yunlan's leather armchairs would do well enough, and unlike the mezzanine lounge or the hallway seats it had a door he could close behind him.

It wasn't the first time Shen Wei had been in Zhao Yunlan's office in the past few weeks. So he knew to expect it, but could do nothing to prepare himself for the moment when Zhao Yunlan's absence pulled the world askew. Everything else here spoke of that beloved presence—the leather jacket thrown casually aside, the wrinkled lollipop wrapper peeking out under the keyboard on the desk, the lingering scent of aftershave and incense. Silence drowned out the memory of Shen Wei's name spoken in happy greeting, crushing the breath from his lungs as he pressed a palm to the cool glass of the office door to steady himself.

Shen Wei had believed that nothing could be worse than the excruciating uncertainty he had suffered since Zhao Yunlan had stayed behind in a crumbling Dixing. That nothing could be more painful than to step through the portal Zhao Yunlan was holding open with the power of the Sundial, too drained help, so drained he only managed to hold onto Xiao Guo's unconscious body because Zhao Yunlan had commanded him to keep his team safe. But this? Knowing that he had now abandoned Zhao Yunlan twice, had left him Ye Zun's captive without excuse or explanation—had seen him alive but could not know for sure that he was still alive—it made Shen Wei's vision swim with pain.

Somehow Shen Wei found the closer of the two armchairs, managing to sit down without falling though his footing was as uncertain as if the floor was giving way beneath him. He must go back. He must. But when his mind traced the shape of the power that could place him in Dixing, it was like drawing a brush with dried ink in the bristles across a blank sheet of paper. Nothing happened—nothing could happen. He had used up everything he had, and still failed to save Zhao Yunlan.

Resting his body while he focused his mind on pulling dark energy from the volatile tangle in his core would probably restore him enough. It would take time Zhao Yunlan might not have, and that—Shen Wei dug his fingers into the soft leather of the armrest, trying to settle in instead of leaping out of the chair. Rest. He had to rest, and focus, and let the pain throb through him with every beat of his heart without heeding it. That way he could restore enough energy to be ready when the SID had made the necessary preparations. Or so he hoped.

Shen Wei leaned against the plump back rest. He brought his breathing under control, and wiped a tired hand across his face. Then he closed his eyes, feeling dampness catch in his lashes, and sunk into the task of quieting his heart and calming his thoughts. He needed to empty his mind to concentrate on the delicate task of siphoning new dark energy from the mess in his core. Needed to stop thinking about Zhao Yunlan. About the weight that Zhao Yunlan had lost, and the lines of pain around his eyes, and the facial hair he had kept neat even as Kunlun gone wild and scraggly. About the way Zhao Yunlan's battered defenses crumbled with joy he saw the truth of who Shen Wei was—no recrimination on his lips, only Shen Wei's name, and a smile that had flayed Shen Wei raw.

No. Stop.

A quick, wet breath, and Shen Wei unclenched his jaw and relaxed his body into the armchair, forcing himself let go. It was like digging splinters from under a fingernail—even the absence of memories stung. But for Zhao Yunlan, he could do it. Could find that familiar deep stillness and pull it over and around his thoughts, could smother emotions to work the fine energies of his core. Could make it all fall away, all of it, until it was just—dark. Almost comforting.

Shen Wei reached inside, ready to set to work.

The darkness turned inside out in a flash of white, and Shen Wei recoiled as malice burst through his mind on a gale of laughter. "Hello, gege."

Cold dread spiked through bone and marrow, fine hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. "Ye Zun." With painstaking, forced control, Shen Wei released a weak burst of energy. Not an attack, but if Ye Zun was there—if Ye Zun had somehow left Dixing and breached their defenses—Shen Wei would know in another few seconds. It should be impossible, but he was not going to take any chances, not with the people Zhao Yunlan had entrusted to his care.

The echo of his questing energy returned to him like rings on blank, clear water. Nothing.

"What are you doing here?" Shen Wei asked. No longer needing to worry about Ye Zun being present in person, the calm with which he had banked the embers of his rage was rapidly dissolving.

"You came all the way to my palace for a visit, and I happened to be out? Such a terribly unfortunate coincidence. I thought I'd rectify it." Ye Zun's voice was a hiss, low and venomous. No—not quite a voice. As Shen Wei emptied his mind, Ye Zun had somehow slithered into it. He was projecting the words, not speaking them.

"What do you want?" Shen Wei was testing his senses against Ye Zun's presence, feeling for anything he could push, or grab, or obliterate from the inside out.

"Maybe I just want a friendly chat," Ye Zun said, bright and deadly.

Had he always been able to do this? No. Shen Wei had the agonizing insight that it must be a new power—that this was Ye Zun reaching out with a stolen life. "Stop it."

"Oh? And here I thought you'd want news of your darling Lord Guardian."

Shen Wei couldn't speak, not even in his mind. He was all ice, lungs crackling with frost, every vein in him a frozen filament. The need to give Ye Zun anything he might want for Zhao Yunlan's safety was a thing stronger than Shen Wei's will itself, although he knew—knew—that Ye Zun would take everything from him and give him nothing but pain and grief in return. "What have you done with him?" Even in his own head, Shen Wei's voice shook. "Tell me!"

Silence answered him, but Ye Zun's presence wasn't gone.

"Please," Shen Wei added.

A spike of vindictive glee, like a sharp-toothed smile. "So polite!"

Only because Shen Wei hadn't yet found a way of threatening Ye Zun, or hurting him. Only because if he started screaming, he did not know if he would be able to stop, and Zhao Yunlan needed him too much for Shen Wei to indulge in hysterics. "What did you come here to say?"

An offended huff. Ye Zun had made the same sound when they were children, right before he pouted to get his way. "I liked it better when you were nice."

Shen Wei knew what Ye Zun wanted. "Please," he said. "I'm listening." He was, with every fibre of his being, even as he wanted to lash out. The only thing that let him maintain an ounce of control was that if Ye Zun was here to taunt him, that should—must—mean that Zhao Yunlan was still alive. Shen Wei needed to know that he was still alive. "Please."

Ye Zun liked that. A foul shiver of satisfaction brushed against Shen Wei, and he wondered distantly if Ye Zun was picking up on his own feelings in the same fashion.

"Are you planning another visit, dear gege?"

Shen Wei didn't hesitate. "We are not leaving Dixing to you." Or Zhao Yunlan.

"'We'. That's cute. You pick up a Yashou menagerie and some Dixing rejects and now the all-powerful Hei Pao Shi is talking about 'we'? Like you have friends."

"You said you had news," Shen Wei grated out.

"Well." Ye Zun's artful pause was full of greedy expectation. "Since you had the poor manners to drop in uninvited and try and make off with my property, I've had to make a few changes here."

"Zhao Yunlan is not your property!"

"Finders, keepers," Ye Zun sang. "You left him, so he's mine now."

The ice around Shen Wei splintered, needlepoints of perfect cold piercing every nerve. "Let him go."

Ye Zun radiated toxic delight. "Or what? You can't touch me—but I can touch him."

Incandescent rage flared in Shen Wei's heart, almost driving him and Ye Zun both out of his mind. As his fists clenched and his pulse pounded furiously, Ye Zun's voice came and went like a poor telephone connection, and Shen Wei had to breathe, and breathe, and pull the blank calm back around himself. "Don't," he said, when everything had steadied enough for words to pass between them again. "Don't touch him, don't you dare—"

"No, don't you dare," Ye Zun hissed. "My Xiao Yunlan—do you know what state you left him in?"

Shen Wei might not be able to feel anything of Ye Zun's energy or form, but until he realized the pain that hit him was all from those words alone, he thought his brother had managed to land a physical blow on him.

"That's right," Ye Zun said to Shen Wei's reeling silence. "You came down here, and you almost broke him, and I won't have it."

Shen Wei wanted to deny it, but he remembered pulling at the dark energy hooked into Zhao Yunlan's own life force, remembered the gasp of pain as Zhao Yunlan's body folded into his arms. And then Ye Zun and he had traded places in existence, which meant Shen Wei had left Zhao Yunlan to wake in Ye Zun's arms. Shen Wei shuddered with horror.

"Anyway, I thought you should know," Ye Zun said primly. "That you can't have him. So you can stop it with the uninvited visits."

"No." The single word was all Shen Wei could manage.

"Really, gege. There's no point in being stubborn about it. You won't—you can't—take him from me anymore."

"What have you done?" Shen Wei knew Ye Zun wanted to tell him—had drawn this out for as long as possible because Ye Zun was reveling in telling him—and he was afraid.

"Well, for one I've told everyone that my evil twin brother can apparently take my place without anyone noticing."

That was no surprise. Shen Wei had only had the one chance to use his power to move unhindered through Dixing, and knowing he had wasted it—

"Such a clever power, gege," Ye Zun continued, "but you really shouldn't have blown the element of surprise."

Hearing his own thoughts echoed back at him by Ye Zun only drove that failure home more sharply. Shen Wei collected himself with difficulty, clinging to the question he was still dreading the answer to. His words came out a growl. "What have you done to Zhao Yunlan?"

A satisfied silence followed, as Ye Zun hummed thoughtfully, as if considering whether to answer.

Shen Wei felt the soft leather of the chair he was sitting in rupture under his fingers as he tried to keep himself from charging upright, screaming at this enemy he knew he could not reach. Losing control wouldn't help Zhao Yunlan. All it would do was give Ye Zun another excuse to draw things out.

Before long Ye Zun spoke into Shen Wei's pained silence, too eager for another reaction to force him to wait. "I have done nothing to him yet."

Yet. The ease with which Ye Zun made his casual threat had Shen Wei grinding his teeth against another futile outburst.

"But his chains… Well." Shen Wei could see his brother's poisonous smile as clearly as he could hear the words, but could do nothing to wipe it from Ye Zun's face. "Since someone ruined the old ones, I made him a beautiful new set. Made them with my own hands. With locks that open for me, and only me."

"You—"

"You try anything with them and they will kill him, gege."

Shen Wei reeled back, losing his grip of the chair's arms, numb with despair as he took in the implications of Ye Zun's words.

"You will kill him." Ye Zun said with relish—not warning Shen Wei away as much as inviting him to try, certain he would fail.

Shen Wei wished for the feeling of ice to return—for pain to ground him, for anger to burn him. For anything except this hopelessness that rose so thick in him that it choked any answering retorts from his mind. He wished again that his power would allow him to change places with Haixingren, so that he might put those accursed chains around his own neck and let Zhao Yunlan be free.

And he wished very much that they had managed to kill Ye Zun when they had the chance.

"Goodbye, Lord Envoy. And please. If you want to visit so badly, maybe ask next time?"

Chapter Text

The greedy power of the upside down gravity still pulled hard. The urge to return to where he ought to be was like hooks under his skin, its impossibly long lines tugging at him. It was no small thing to take another's place in the fabric of existence, especially when that other did not wish to be taking his own place. But it seemed that it was somewhat easier, this time. As if repeating the use of his power had stretched reality like a new pair of gloves.

And why shouldn't it have? He needed to be here, be entirely, wholly here. As if he always had been. (He had, hadn't he? For so long it might as well be always.)

The wrongness like rot in the marrow of his bones wasn't anything he could afford to heed. He couldn't let his thoughts stray. No. They all should be on what was owed him. What was his.

He could not hesitate. Dixing had eyes everywhere, and neither the dubiously faithful guards nor the grovelling courtiers could be trusted. If he'd had all of the Hallows, it might have been safe to strike with brute force. To end this once and for all, rather than play games in a halflight world of treachery and pain. But for now, possessing only two, this was the only thing that was...possible. An option so wretchedly terrible it should never have come to this, but—but the only thing worse than continuing on this path would be standing by and letting others decide the fate of everything that mattered.

And so he concentrated on everything that wasn't the weakness nobody must be allowed to see: The whisper of his footsteps against the worn flagstones of the palace hallways. The smell of sulphur and ozone and old, old dust. The flickering light of long-burning torches and the steady heat radiating from lava gutters putting spots of color in his naked cheeks.

No mask, here. Not now. It was too late for that.

Covering the familiar distance to where he ached and feared to be was a simple matter of not stopping. One foot in front of the other, even when guards in black flocked to him. He could possibly have dismissed them with a word or a gesture. Not so the Regent, who came scurrying after them, wringing his hands as he bowed.

"My lord! My deepest apologies, Your Excellence. I was not aware you would be making this visit now?" A watery smile followed—the Regent waiting for a reaction to know what other expression to wear for his master, even as he dared to question what was happening. Dared to shoot painfully obvious looks at the guards, who stiffened from attentiveness into open suspicion.

"How fortunate that you could join me so soon." The words were sour to speak, and he didn't bother hiding his distaste.

"I do my humble best to serve you, My lord, and thank you for entrusting me with this duty."

Duty. The duty of—of overseeing visits. That had probably seemed like a good idea at some point, but now it made him want to snarl and unleash a destructive selection of powers. He reined himself in. Shifted into a smile as if all this delighted him. "You are a credit to Dixing." Old bastard. "I have had a most excellent idea. Come. I will show you." He nodded at the guards, and the Regent, allowing them all to trail in his wake. To observe him with shifty, prying eyes.

They would see that he was all they expected. They all would. Everyone would, even—

He opened the heavy door with a flick of his wrist. The hinges were well-oiled. An unremarkable detail that made his breath catch. Silence and stealth were not for him. Because—because that wasn't what he wanted.

That must be it. Must be. Just as this must be what he wanted.

Inside, the light was softer. His shadow blocked the hallway torchlight from reaching all the way to—

Zhao Yunlan.

Everything stopped. The guards and the Regent, keeping their distance. His footsteps. His breath, his heart.

This was what he had came here for. This was why he was here. He could continue. Could breathe, and take a step into the room, and stare at the figure curled on the pallet on the floor, with—his stomach flipped, but he had it. He knew what he felt. That possessiveness—wanting Zhao Yunlan to be his. He let a slow smile spread across his face as the Regent shooed guards in behind him. They took up positions around the room with admirable precision. They had their rifles in their hands, and not all of them were trained on the prisoner. He could feel the Regent's stare like the tip of a dagger drawing a shiver from the skin at the back of his neck.

Zhao Yunlan stirred, a hand going to rub sleep out of his eyes in an aborted gesture that should not have been achingly familiar. The confused vulnerability of this moment between sleeping and waking ignited emotions too complex to process. He told himself it was good to see the smudges of exhaustion standing out against the pallor of Zhao Yunlan's skin, and that he enjoyed the caught breath and clenched jaw that gave away fraying self-control. Of course he wanted to know even this lenient captivity was giving the Lord Guardian a taste of imprisonment and despair. Not that it was anything compared to ten thousand years spent locked away in stone.

When Zhao Yunlan huffed in annoyance and looked up from under tangled bangs, he let his enjoyment show with a smile like a knife-cut. Zhao Yunlan met it with a flash of his own teeth. There was a brittle edge to the expression, and the way Zhao Yunlan winced when he rose unsteadily to his feet betrayed even more weakness than before.

Yes. That. That was why he was here. What he wanted. To see Zhao Yunlan like this.

In the dimness of the cell, the manacles around Zhao Yunlan's wrists and the collar around his bruised neck glinted with silver that shone as if made of bone-pale moonlight. A cold thrill went down his spine. Made with his own hands—his own hands.

What else had he done, with his own hands?

Zhao Yunlan’s jaw was set as he hooked his chain-linked hands into his ratty jeans with studied casualness. But the pose couldn't hide how he leaned only his right shoulder against the wall, tucking the left forward to keep his weight off of it. And it didn't hide how fast his pulse beat over the silver collar, or how his chest moved with too-quick breaths under the oversized t-shirt he wore.

And yet when neither of them spoke, the gaze that had only briefly flitted up to his face returned from its contemplation of the corners of the room to study him more carefully. No, he wanted to cry. Don't look at me like that. Chin raised, eyes hard.

He swept a showy wave of very precisely aimed dark energy across the room. A discordant jangle of chains and Zhao Yunlan doubled over, gasping for breath. It almost drowned out the Regent's thoughtful hum.

He could not allow Zhao Yunlan to see anything save what he expected. Could not allow the Regent to see any weakness in his actions. "You." An imperious sweep of his arm at the nearest guards. "I want the Sundial of Longevity and the Guardian Lantern."

They hesitated, and he did not hold his frustration in check. "Now!"

"My lord." The Regent shuffled up behind the guards, solicitous. They stepped aside to let him pass with some relief. "Your will is absolute, of course, but, eh." He gestured at Zhao Yunlan, and shrugged as if it was a terrible pity he had to interfere, rather than an enthusiastically grabbed opportunity to demonstrate the power he still held in Dixing. "Your previous orders do stand."

To keep the Hallows safe from the one who might come down here and try to steal them away in plain sight. Yes. Of course. Have the Regent supervise any contact with Zhao Yunlan and the Hallows both. Give the Regent, who had only one face—false though it may be—final say in whether the guards were following true orders or not.

Ye Zun's orders. Ye Zun—everything came down to this, to Ye Zun.

To him.

"My lord?"

"Yes. Yes of course." Ye Zun would show them all. Accepting it fractured something inside him. He could feel the razor-edged cracks under his skin, and he laughed at the guards' expressions as they trained their rifles on him. Looked over at Zhao Yunlan, the laughter dying in his throat.

There was something there, in Zhao Yunlan's eyes. A spark. A light that he wanted. That he needed. That he should grab and hold and—nurture. Yes. No. Extinguish.

Extinguish.

He could not allow Zhao Yunlan to look at him with hope in his eyes. He could not. It sent cold rage through him, making the fractured pieces inside his chest shiver against each other, sharp and cutting.

It was time. It could not matter now that what broke might not ever heal cleanly. That he might never see that spark again, no matter how much he ached for it. His world had been cold and dark for so long, and he raged against the knowledge that this spark of warmth and light was not for him.

Was not ever his.

He let the fury move him. Stood before Zhao Yunlan, who flinched back, a hand raised in an instinctive, futile gesture of protection. The movement brought a flicker of emotion that he smothered before it could grow into something ruinous for both of them. Without even letting himself think an apology he would never deserve to speak, he reached out and snapped the arm Zhao Yunlan held between them.

It broke cleanly.

Zhao Yunlan didn't muffle his cry of pain or mask his distress as he reached awkwardly to cover the break with his chained hand, breathing harshly through clenched teeth. Very far away, a couple of guards exchanged disparaging remarks. But when Zhao Yunlan looked up, it was with so much disdain that it was nearly impossible to see the fear kept in careful check.

"Ah." That was the Regent, who was right there—when had he…? No matter. The Regent leaned obscenely close to Zhao Yunlan, observing the sweat beading his hairline and the new lines of pain etched around his eyes. "Yes, that seemed—effective." He winced, as if in sympathy. Not that he would fool anyone as he gestured delicately, "But. Well. May I see?"

That it was real and not a trick. That he had hurt Zhao Yunlan properly. As if he hadn't done everything he must. Swallowing against a bitter sting in his throat, he smirked. Grabbed Zhao Yunlan's wrist above the manacle and yanked his protective hand away with a jangle of chains. The skin felt warm in contrast with the metal edge biting into it, the softness of it marred with coarse scabs over straining tendons. Trying to pull away, though Zhao Yunlan must know his efforts would be futile.

"Hold still," he ordered, tightening his fist into a vise. The Regent was fussily poking at the skin above the elbow of Zhao Yunlan's other arm, and any motion now would jostle the crooked bulge of the break.

An involuntary hiss, and then Zhao Yunlan yanked against him again, angry and stubborn and foolish. "Fuck off, geezer."

The Regent took a step back, slackjawed with shock, as if people weren't constantly wishing he would fuck off.

Zhao Yunlan's smirk seemed perfectly effortless.

"My lord—I must protest this!"

The tone of outrage turned his way was galling. He glared at them both—Zhao Yunlan's bravado bolstered by the Regent's affront. "Stop squabbling, you two."

At his words the Regent's quivering indignation stilled into something calculating. "Pardon me, Your Excellence," he said with exaggerated humility. "But the prisoner's intransigence has this old man worried."

A subtle attack on his authority, that, not helped by the way Zhao Yunlan bared his teeth in a ghoulish grin. He gripped Zhao Yunlan's unbroken arm bruising tight, and then tighter still. A fraction more and these bones too would snap, and yet there was nothing tractable about Zhao Yunlan through his silent grimace of pain. "Has anyone ever told you that you worry too much?"

The Regent chuckled ruefully. "Often, my lord. But such is my duty to Dixing." Not Ye Zun. Dixing. The distinction had not gone unnoticed. "Which is why I have to say that bringing the Hallows near this man who was Lord Guardian of Haixing—"

"Is," Zhao Yunlan interrupted, in an infuriating display of disregard for his own situation.

"—when you cannot control him..." The Regent shook his head. "I do not deem it wise."

So, he was to be thwarted, unless he could prove himself. And since there were hateful reasons outside of his control why he could not wring the old man's neck, prove himself he would. Again. "Yes, we wouldn't want to do anything...unwise."

The easiest solution to the situation would have been to slip a command into Zhao Yunlan's mind. To show that Ye Zun had him well in hand. But he knew from experience that every attempt from insidious whispers to brute force attacks would be turned away. Not resisted—Zhao Yunlan did not have dark energy shields or mental barriers to protect him—but simply...denied. There was a fierce kind of pleasure in knowing that the Regent was wrong in his assumptions: Zhao Yunlan was still Lord Guardian of Haixing, even here, even now.

But all that could protect was his mind. His body—that was as vulnerable as it had ever been. Easily bruised, easily broken.

Easily pulled to his knees with a simple twist of power.

The impact when he hit the floor was audible. Zhao Yunlan wheezed in pain, gathering his broken arm to his chest. With his head bowed, it was easy to grab the chain attached to the collar around Zhao Yunlan's neck.

The chain that tingled with energies he had no reason to investigate—it was of his own making, after all. So he held on to it, heedless of what it made him feel. Didn't let the Regent see him swaying dizzily. Turned the motion into a tug that had Zhao Yunlan falling back against Ye Zun's white robes. Wrapping the silver chain around one hand, he rested the other on Zhao Yunlan's head. "Dear Regent. Is this what you feared?" He let his fingers sink into Zhao Yunlan's hair—shaggy and greasy, the sensation revolted him, but he didn't drop his smile or his hand.

Something in the quick sequence of actions had taken the Regent aback. He had stepped back, and was eyeing them both equally cautiously, as if looking at a man with a wolf leashed by a ribbon of silk. "He. He won't obey your orders, my lord." It wasn't quite a stutter.

"Well, then you have that much in common." He clenched his hand, yanked Zhao Yunlan's head back by the hair to expose his chained neck. It wasn't difficult to keep the rest of Zhao Yunlan's body immobile. With the damage it had suffered he would have had trouble putting up a struggle even against a physical hold. But using dark energy was more efficient.

"Only this one," a slight shake for emphasis, "is a Haixingren in chains. Do you really think that attitude is enough of a threat that you will keep me from exploring this new possibility with the Hallows? Because if I cannot use him, I will need someone else—and if prisoners are so terrifying to you, I might need to look elsewhere for...volunteers."

Without taking his attention fully off of Zhao Yunlan, he looked over at the Regent, who nodded into a hasty half-bow that didn't hide his consternation. "Yes, my lord. I understand. However—"

"I made a request," he said softly, turning to the guards. They had been watching everything with rapt attention and met his gaze with the enthusiasm of eager hounds. Good. At least they might still know who their master was. "And you know your orders. So—" He stretched his lips into the semblance of a smile and snapped his stare back to the Regent. "You have until the blood stops flowing to obey."

"The blood—"

He didn't bother answering the Regent's half-formed question with words. With a gesture he lifted Zhao Yunlan to his feet and shoved him back against the wall, pinning his body there with a palm against his sternum, to a discordant shiver of memories at the wild beating of the heart under that ribcage. With the other, he summoned a ball of dark energy, twisted it into a spike, and plunged it through Zhao Yunlan's left shoulder.

"Go," he snarled, and two of the guards clustered in the hallway broke off at a run. Another two hesitated, waiting for the Regent's flick of the fingers before pelting after their fellows.

The blood was scalding hot over his fingers as he held the energy in place, and the bright, metallic smell of it seemed to fill the room—fill his mouth and nose until he nearly choked on it. Zhao Yunlan was panting harsh and fast, a hint of a moan on each exhalation as his body tensed and shuddered around the invasion, and he felt his own pulse respond, as if in passion.

Or panic.

Everything felt like it could be something else—as if he were the one torn open and bleeding, lightheaded and dizzy as he was being wrenched out of himself by a force pulling—

Pulling?

No, he couldn't let it. Couldn't let anything—he had to—

"—hourglass."

"What?" He blinked.

Zhao Yunlan drew a wheezing breath that was far too agonized to be a laugh. "Hah. Am I— boring you?" He spoke in clipped syllables, his jaw bunching with tension, but his eyes shone like steel. Steel, which grew deadlier when beaten, forged into a killing blade. "Said I'd. Lend you. An hourglass. Next time."

Something about his expression made Zhao Yunlan grimace. "Don't make me. Explain the joke. You useless fuck." Getting the words out had taken their toll. His head slumped forward, hiding his expression.

Hourglass?

It took until he registered the sound of footsteps echoing in the hallway outside to remember—until the blood stops flowing. And Zhao Yunlan—Zhao Yunlan had been making timekeeping jokes.

A base insult to his honor could not have made him more furious. How dare Zhao Yunlan. How dare he speak with such levity in this situation? His lips had drawn back, ready to snap at Zhao Yunlan, when the Regent insinuated himself back in his field of vision.

"My lord. The Hallows have been brought."

The Hallows. Through Zhao Yunlan's efforts, the Mountain-River Awl and Merit Brush had been taken to Haixing, but here he had the Sundial of Longevity and the Guardian Lantern.

"Good. Bring—bring them here." It was no effort at all to release the dark energy through Zhao Yunlan's shoulder, a cascade of blood rushing to fill the void. His hand was coated in it, the dark red of it soaking into the white sleeve. The contrast drew his gaze when he gestured to the bowing guards. The two who'd hesitated.

Another pounding wave of fury, this time at the Regent's meddling. Wasn't this good enough? Wasn't anything ever good enough for that foul man?

"Which one do you desire, my lord? You had an...idea?"

Why not give him both? His impatience flared, as if he was going to be pulled away at any minute, when he had all the time in the world. He could take it slow. He could find a smile, and be seen to consider it, and light up and point imperiously at the Sundial.

His other hand he slid up Zhao Yunlan's chest, gliding his palm up the heaving torso until his thumb and forefinger stroked the clavicles under that thin t-shirt. Then all he had to do was reach out. Reach out and—there.

His fingertips brushed against blood-streaked metal.

Holding the Sundial tight, he pressed the pads of his finger against the collar around Zhao Yunlan's neck, and thought, open.

Knowing it would obey only him.

Obey Ye Zun.

Everyone—the guards, the Regent, even Zhao Yunlan himself, knew that was who stood before them.

There was no turning of an invisible key, no click of any lock. The Sundial did not light up, nor did the collar.

It simply—slid open.

Without letting himself hesitate—without giving himself or anyone else in the room time to think—he wrapped his hand around Zhao Yunlan's wrist again. This time the shackle fell away, unresisting, taking its twin with it.

He held on to Zhao Yunlan and let go of everything else. By the time the Regent had gathered his own power and the guards fired their first shots, he was already falling away with Zhao Yunlan held tightly in his arms.

Chapter Text

Zhao Yunlan did his best to battle the pain and confusion. It wasn't good enough. His senses kept going in and out, his mind blanking entirely—it had been bad before, but he didn't think (when he could think) that it had ever been this bad. Light stung, pricking his eyeballs even through his eyelids. He was cold, and then hot. The broken bits of him—he was losing track of where they were, there had been so many—hurt. This time, hadn't it been...arms?

Yeah, that's where the worst of it was. His left shoulder and his right arm.

He tried to find Ye Zun in the chaos of voices and movement and blinding brightness, because whatever happened next—whatever was happening now—he would be behind it. Zhao Yunlan knew he couldn't stop it, but if he could prepare—if he could read the situation—but he would have to open his eyes for that, and it was so fucking bright.

Bright. Which his cell wasn't. His gut clenched and twisted, the constant ache in it spiking along with his heart rate. Shit. He'd been moved—the collar opening, the manacles falling off. Of course he'd been moved. Get it together. The adrenaline gave him just enough shaky energy to find some focus, to pay attention to his senses.

There were hands roving his body, strange pressure here and there. A tight sensation around his shoulder, which hurt, but not more than he could handle. He overrode the instinct to recoil and made himself be still as he observed. Where was he? There were multiple voices talking over each other. All sounded tense—upset, even. He thought he heard his name, and orders, and—and other names. His chest compressed with ridiculous emotions before spiteful self-mockery told him that he was imagining things again. Turning snatches of his captors' conversation to Hong-jie! and Where's Da Qing? and Lin Jing, bring that over here.

So he wasn't doing great, and he couldn't trust anything he thought he heard. That was bad—worse than expected. If he'd really lost it completely, then what was the point of trying to hold on?

The point was....the point was that he hadn't given up yet, not through any of this. And if he could still think and reason—which he could—then why would he reason himself into surrender? No. He wouldn't. He wasn't going to give Ye Zun the satisfaction.

Besides. Something nagged at him, something he couldn't shake. An impression—a scent. Something more than the strange bitter tang to the air, which was tainted by the smell of blood he only noticed because he was trying to catch a whiff of something else.

Popcorn.

Zhao Yunlan smelled popcorn, like the kind Lin Jing made in his weird contraption, and he couldn't help the hysteria rattling in his throat because oh wow had he lost it, but at least his hallucinations were nice?

The sound he made—it definitely didn't sound like laughter, not even to his cheerfully fabulating senses—drew attention. More hands. He thought he had been sitting up, but now he was lying down, and they were—taking his hand? What the fuck. No. He tried to snatch it back, and instantly regretted it at the throbbing pain in every nerve from his shoulder to his fingertips.

"Chief Zhao!" The anguish sounded so like Xiao Guo—but anguished was the way Ye Zun had heard him, so it made sense. Xiao Guo fighting off Ye Zun's power. Xiao Guo joining forces with the others, and all of them together being just enough—good times. Zhao Yunlan wasn't about to let Ye Zun do anything to those memories, not even when he heard what sounded like Xiao Guo again. "Chief Zhao, please, please hold still?"

"Stop it," Zhao Yunlan growled, tongue thick in his mouth. "The kid did good. Leave him out of this."

The statement was met by an explosion of voices nearby, loud and excited. Was Ye Zun busy? It didn't sound like him. Where had Zhao Yunlan been brought? And why could he smell popcorn and...perfume? Was it really just his imagination? Because when he sniffed the air it came to him. Cherries and black licorice. He had once complimented that perfume of Zhu Hong's, and she had worn it ever since.

"Stop it." Ye Zun had lied to him before, over and over again, but he'd never struck so close to things that mattered. Little things, things that only Zhao Yunlan should know—that he hated Ye Zun knowing too. Why was he doing this now, here…where were they again? If Zhao Yunlan could just have a look around—shit, no. Opening his eyes had been a bad idea. Now they were watery and useless, swimming with afterimages like he'd stared straight at the sun.

"Is—is he blind again?" The Xiao Guo voice again.

"I don't know. It's possible." Tense and terse, Zhu Hong had sounded a lot more sympathetic when Zhao Yunlan was actually blind. "It'll have to wait."

That couldn't be her.

"Boss? Can you hear me? Can you see—" An abrupt silence, and Zhao Yunlan couldn't see anything but he had a perfectly clear mental image of Lin Jing grabbing at his hair. "See! Of course—we're idiots!" They were. But they were his idiots, not Ye Zun's. It was choking him with—with too many emotions to name, this pretense that they were right here. Fury. Fury at Ye Zun's presumption. And disappointment, too—that he should be made to think he was somewhere with the SID, and yet not have even a false Shen Wei at his side to comfort him. (Or a real one. He had come once, Zhao Yunlan knew it. And he'd thought—but no, that had all been drowned out by pain.)

There was commotion around him. Shouted instructions, footsteps, and then the stabbing red that was all Zhao Yunlan had been able to see since he came to was gone. Everything went dim. Not perfectly dark—even with his retinas still firing ghostlights at him, he could tell that much. But it was far more comfortable.

Zhao Yunlan cracked his eyes open, needing to know. If—no. No, he remembered—Ye Zun had been right there, so—

He saw a blurry version of Zhu Hong leaning over him, his brain informing him that her position matched the touches he felt against his throbbing shoulder. Next to her was a pale and shaken Xiao Guo clutching what looked like a swath of medical gauze, and when he turned his head he saw Lin Jing rushing toward them. "Look! I found these, they were still in his office—they'll help, since we can't make everything dark in here."

Lin Jing was holding the sunglasses Zhao Yunlan had used when he couldn't see. The ones Zhao Yunlan himself hadn't looked at or thought about since the moment he tossed them aside.

There was absolutely no way Ye Zun could know about that detail. None. Which meant—

"Boss?" Lin Jing hesitated as Zhao Yunlan met his eyes.

Lin Jing. Not Ye Zun.

And Xiao Guo and Zhu Hong. Not Ye Zun.

Fuck. None of it made sense. How—when—Zhao Yunlan remembered Ye Zun, and the Regent, and a mad sort of hope dashed as his own blood soaked Ye Zun's sleeve. So what had happened, and—and. "Shen Wei?" Zhao Yunlan couldn't ask all the questions he needed to get out. Wasn't sure it was safe to ask this one, but he didn't care. If the answer was a taunt, at least he'd know. He shut his eyes.

"Shen Wei is here," Zhu Hong said, her voice remarkably steady for someone holding back a flood of emotions. Before Zhao Yunlan could second-guess her statement—if Shen Wei was here, why wasn't he here?—Zhu Hong continued in a rush, "He's fine. Lao Chu and the others are looking after him."

Zhao Yunlan's eyes opened wide, needing more. More information, more confirmation.

"Shen Wei was healing you, and then he passed out. He's fine—his vitals are fine. He's just exhausted, but he's fine." Zhu Hong smiled at him. Her pupils were huge, and her eyes shining wetly, but she was beaming. She'd said fine too much and Zhao Yunlan knew Shen Wei wasn't, not really, but he was alive and he was here and—and Zhao Yunlan was here. In the SID's lab. "Welcome back, Chief Zhao."

Back.

Free of Ye Zun.

It should have been a joyful moment—one of triumph, with his friends there looking at Zhao Yunlan as if he had risen from the dead. Instead he felt the one thing he had propped himself up against all this time give way. As long as there had been someone for Zhao Yunlan to push back against—to refuse to give in to—he had managed to hold steady. But now? Knowing—hoping—that he was with people he trusted, who had nothing but kindness for him, he could no longer contain everything he had been hiding, even from himself.

"You—how—how long?" He had so many questions, but the wash of agony got worse when he tensed around a laugh he didn't want to let slip into a sob, but had no reason to choke back.

Zhu Hong shook her head with a smile, dashing away the tears spilling over. "Shen Wei. Shen Wei got you back. It's been twenty-five days since—since Dixing."

Not even a month. Could that be right? Zhu Hong would know. Zhu Hong wouldn't lie. But it had felt like—more.

"Now we're patching you up until Shen Wei can finish healing you. This ointment will help. It's okay—we'll tell you everything else later."

No. Zhao Yunlan frowned. Something about that was wrong. Really badly wrong. His gut was curdling with it, his head pounding. Shen Wei got you back, when Zhao Yunlan didn't remember Shen Wei. Didn't remember anyone but Ye Zun.

Except—

No. No, that had been his imagination—that strange anticipation building at the way Ye Zun had looked at him, at the way Ye Zun had touched him. Because then there had been so much pain, so much blood, he'd known he had been wrong because Shen Wei couldn't have—

Except he must have.

Everything Zhao Yunlan knew, every scrap of observation and intuition and cold logic pulled together to bring him an answer he couldn't deny any longer. He had all of one trembling breath to heave himself onto his side, jostling everything broken into giving off lightning bolts of pain, and then he was violently sick. He was dimly aware that this sent the others in the room into a panicked flurry of worry, but all he could do was stay there, curled up with his cheek against the cold metal railing of the medical table as the nausea wrung him inside out.

Shen Wei.

Bile burned his throat, his stomach empty but heaving as he went over everything that Shen Wei had been forced to do. Had been forced to endure alone, without Zhao Yunlan for support. Without even the comfort of denial, because by the end it had been absolutely clear that nobody—not the guards, not the Regent, not Zhao Yunlan himself—had been able to tell that Shen Wei was not his brother.

Which is what had saved Zhao Yunlan's life—but at what cost to Shen Wei? Sweaty and trembling, Zhao Yunlan sat up.

He was dimly aware of Zhu Hong scolding him at the same time as Xiao Guo offered him a mug of water. And Lin Jing was—on the floor? Oh. Cleaning.

Zhao Yunlan carefully swung his legs around, trying to move the lower part of his body without aggravating any of his injuries. Despite being tightly wrapped up with what smelled like a fortune in Snake Tribe medicine, his left shoulder was a mess of stabbing, throbbing pain that flared bright when he shifted. The arm had been tucked in a sling to take weight off the injured shoulder, but it didn't do much to hide how all those moving pieces didn't fit together quite right anymore.

But his right—he knew it had been broken, because he could remember the nerve-searing sensation of jagged edges grinding up against each other. That was gone now. The bandaged arm was still sore and swollen, but the pain was a dull ache in the back of his teeth rather than something that would make him black out if poked. So Shen Wei had gotten that far in healing him, and then stopped. Passed out, Zhu Hong had said—he would never have chosen to stop.

"Where's Shen Wei?"

"Chief Zhao, you should drink..."

"Lie back down, Lao Zhao! You need more bandages!" Zhu Hong wasn't wrong. They'd wiped most of the blood off, and gotten a start on the worst bits of him, but his neck felt raw and tender, and he could see fresh blood seeping out where the scabs around his wrists had torn. But that could wait.

"Shen Wei?" Zhao Yunlan needed to see Shen Wei, because he was afraid, deeply afraid, of what he would find.

"He's—he's in the interrogation room," Xiao Guo offered, with an apologetic look at Zhu Hong.

Okay. So Zhao Yunlan was walking out of the lab, and down the hall, and through the door there. He could do that. He planted his feet on the floor. Stood up. Dizziness joined pain in trying to kick his legs out from under him, and he would have fallen if not for Zhu Hong's quick reflexes. Small, cold hands on his bare chest and back propped him up, and Zhu Hong looked at him with such angry concern that he had to smile. "Nice catch."

"Lin Jing! Get your chair."

The chair was definitely better than walking, and putting the sunglasses on kept the lights outside the lab from blinding him again. They all helped him get where he needed to be, all three of his people. Three here—where were the rest? Gnawing terror he had no outlet for twisted behind his ribs. Why did the corridor smell of acrid smoke? And why was there broken interrogation room furniture haphazardly lined up in the hallway? What had happened here?

Inside, the room was missing its two-way mirror, but more importantly than that, it was crowded with his people. Sang Zan was standing, and Lao Chu and Wang Zheng were sitting down, bent over a white-dressed body on the floor. Zhao Yunlan couldn't see the face—only those familiar robes, splattered in blood, and if he had been walking he would have stopped. At the sound of his approach, they all looked up, and Zhao Yunlan got a triple round of horrified concern. Three? Zhao Yunlan looked again, and a fourth face, round and whiskered, looked up from where Da Qing was curled on Shen Wei's chest.

Seeing his friend brought such relief. He hadn't known—hadn't been sure why Da Qing wasn't with him. But literally planting himself on Shen Wei? Da Qing knew where Zhao Yunlan's priorities lay.

Ignoring the questions and suggestions that maybe he shouldn't be up, maybe Zhu Hong shouldn't have let him, maybe next time you stop him, Zhao Yunlan stood. He was looking at—Shen Wei. The hair and the robes were wrong, but—it was Shen Wei, it had to be. He could trust Da Qing's nose more than his own eyes. Shen Wei, laid out on a blanket on the floor. He was so still. But if Da Qing was calmly sitting there, then—then Shen Wei had just passed out, like Zhu Hong said, and there was no need for the panic with which Zhao Yunlan stumbled over and fell to his knees next to him.

Froze. Wanted it to be just pain holding him back from reaching out, but there was a hollow of fear behind his ribcage as he looked down at that face framed by silver hair, tinted sepia by his sunglasses.

"Lao Zhao?" Da Qing's furry body bounced off of Shen Wei, and the next thing Zhao Yunlan knew there was a hand between his shoulder blades, rubbing the same soothing circles that had gotten him through the aftermath of more than a few binges. And just like then, Da Qing didn't hold back. "You look like awful. You smell awful. You should lie down. You should never have stood up. You're not even wearing proper clothes, Lao Zhao."

The words poured over Zhao Yunlan, washed away some of the choking wrongness in a torrent of things normal and familiar and good. Listening to Da Qing's voice, ignoring most of Da Qing's words—it made it easier to understand that he really was here, with everyone he had longed to see safe around him. With Shen Wei, whom he had missed more than he had known he could miss anyone alive—and Shen Wei was alive. Just because he had the complexion and demeanor of a murder victim...

"Shen Wei?" Zhao Yunlan placed his right hand on Shen Wei's shoulder with deliberate care. Put a bit of effort into giving him a gentle shake. Shen Wei didn't stir. Zhao Yunlan swallowed. Wanted to sink down next to Shen Wei, wrap himself around that still body until Shen Wei responded. But Da Qing was holding on to him now, though he hadn't been collapsing as much as leaning closer on purpose. So he stayed upright, and reached to take Shen Wei's hand.

Hesitated, his nerves jangling at a discordant detail.

Shen Wei's hands had been bloody. Zhao Yunlan recalled that with painful clarity, and saw that the sleeves of the robe still were. But the hand under his hovering fingers was perfectly clean.

Who was he really looking at? Zhao Yunlan's heart sped up painfully before he noticed Wang Zheng sitting next to a big metal bowl with peach-blossom pink water, holding a towel. Because why take in the obvious when he could just continue to doubt his own ability to tell Shen Wei and his brother apart, and suspect all of his friends of being easily fooled? Shame burning in him, Zhao Yunlan resolutely took Shen Wei's cold hand in his hot one. Tried to push words past the lump sitting thick and heavy in his throat. "Hey. I'm here."

Shen Wei's eyelashes fluttered.

Zhao Yunlan thought at first it might be just his imagination—nothing had come this easy to them, not for so long it seemed impossible that their separation might finally end right now. But then Shen Wei's fingers twitched in his grip, and Shen Wei's brow furrowed.

"Shen Wei." It came out a croak, but everyone else was as quiet as if they were holding their breath. Quiet enough that Zhao Yunlan could hear water dripping from Wang Zheng's towel to the floor. One, two, three drops—and now Zhao Yunlan was holding his breath, squeezing Shen Wei's hand. Hoping, hoping.

"No!" Shen Wei's exclamation startled everyone. Zhao Yunlan didn't notice. At the unexpected loudness of Shen Wei's voice he recoiled. Dropped Shen Wei's hand.

And that was when Shen Wei opened his eyes and looked straight at Zhao Yunlan.

The buzzing background noise of confused reaction from the rest of the room fell away. Shen Wei's eyes lit up—Zhao Yunlan could see it, had time to process that the expression didn't match the harsh command still echoing in his ears—and then went blank with hopelessness. "No."

Zhao Yunlan wasn't holding on to Shen Wei anymore. He should be. He wanted to be. But when he tried he found his body frozen, locked up in panic at the harsh sound of Shen Wei's denial. So he sat there, his one functional arm hanging uselessly at his side, and watched as Shen Wei pushed himself away.

"Shen Wei?" Zhao Yunlan tried to plead with him to stay, but Shen Wei knocked over the bowl of bloodied water in a clatter that drowned him out, Wang Zheng's voice ringing out in consternation.

Everything was wrong, and yet—Zhao Yunlan knew that they were in a small room, with only one door. Through the shock of watching Shen Wei flinging himself away rather than coming closer, through the anguish of being held back by a reaction brought on by trauma he couldn't simply push aside, Zhao Yunlan could cling to that fact and know that right now was the worst it was going to get. He had Shen Wei right there—Shen Wei, even though he looked wrong it was Shen Wei—and in a moment Zhao Yunlan would be able to move. Would be able to go to his side and tell him—

Shen Wei's gesture gave Zhao Yunlan maybe a second to process how wrong he had been, and realize that he didn't have the luxury of counting on Lao Chu or anyone else sensible to stop Shen Wei from doing this to himself. Then a portal opened, dark and swirly and right fucking there—Sang Zan had to yank Wang Zheng out of its strange two-dimensional reach—and Zhao Yunlan had to admit that things could get worse. A lot worse. But he wouldn't let them.

Da Qing shouted something. Zhao Yunlan moved—tried flinging himself forward, but tumbled and went down with his arm thrown out, reaching for Shen Wei instead of trying to catch himself.

Zhao Yunlan's fist closed around a handful of bloodstained white, the nerves of his arm flaring with an agony that shot sparks all the way up and down his spine, and then everything went quiet.

It took far longer than it should have for Shen Wei to realize he was not simply imagining something holding him back and constricting his breathing. With a riotous tangle of emotions clawing at his heart, and worse yet grasping at his mind, he believed this too was something he shouldn't be feeling.

Not until the portal was nearly closed did Shen Wei realize that Ye Zun's robes were tightening around his throat because someone in the SID was pulling at them. Even half-delirious and far too aware of the state Zhao Yunlan was in, Shen Wei knew there was only one person in the room who would ever dare.

Fear blossomed into the terror of being cornered, frantically looking for a last escape—Shen Wei needed to leave Zhao Yunlan, but he could not let anything happen to Zhao Yunlan. He could not, not again.

Shen Wei turned and swept Zhao Yunlan into the relative safety of his arms, cradling that precious body against the nonexistence of the portal snapping shut as the last piece of trailing fabric was engulfed. Without having planned it—without even having thought it—their destination changed. Shen Wei held Zhao Yunlan as carefully as he could and stepped through into the apartment they had shared since his own had been vandalized. The apartment Shen Wei had retreated to when the sympathetic looks and low voices of the SID got to be too much.

Zhao Yunlan had been tense when Shen Wei caught him, curling up in pain. Now Shen Wei could feel nothing but the deadweight limpness of unconsciousness. Shen Wei quickly deposited Zhao Yunlan in a supine position on the neatly made covers of the bed and took a few strides away. Zhao Yunlan was dressed in nothing but jeans and bandages, his scabs and bruises showing up like shadows on his pale skin in the dim light. He seemed more bruised than not, and Shen Wei thought of summoning another portal, of going away, of saving Zhao Yunlan from everything Shen Wei had become. Guilt twisted his guts to knots. He should leave—but then Zhao Yunlan would be alone, with nobody to tend to those wounds—his wounds—the ones Shen Wei had—

"Stay."

The single whispered word plunged through Shen Wei like a spear. It broke things inside of him as he stared through the midnight dimness of the room and saw that Zhao Yunlan's eyes—mercifully closed for the brief time he had spent in Shen Wei's arms—had opened a fraction behind the sunglasses. They were crinkled in pain, not laughter, but there was something soft around his mouth that made Shen Wei remember every single one of the warm, generous smiles Zhao Yunlan had given him from that position.

Of course he would stay. Zhao Yunlan needed him. Shen Wei moved toward him, helplessly. His heart had been anchored to Zhao Yunlan for so long it felt right and natural. It wasn't until Zhao Yunlan's eyes widened in shock, his lips losing all softness as they pressed together over a faint noise, that Shen Wei was struck by all he had managed to forget in that one moment of simply wanting to be at Zhao Yunlan's side again. His fists clenched around empty air. He could pull another portal open, though it would cost him. But he could not leave Zhao Yunlan. The guilt of that was like a blade with no hilt—no matter how he tried to wield it he would be cut to the bone.

"Xiao Wei," Zhao Yunlan said, his voice tight. "I know it's you, baby, but could you maybe…change?" The words were followed by the dry-leaf whisper of a laugh. Zhao Yunlan had shut his eyes, and dug his fingertips into the sheets as if he was trying to hold himself in place. Or feeling which place he was in.

Mortification was such a trivial emotion that Shen Wei was surprised when the stab of it felt like it drained him of blood. He hadn't thought beyond leaving before it was too late. Hadn't registered anything beyond Zhao Yunlan's presence when he awoke. Certainly hadn't thought about how he must appear: hair still long and silver, and every stitch on his body stolen from Ye Zun's quarters. "Yes," he managed. "Yes, of course—right away."

It took long moments to find a safe source of power to draw from, and longer still to work the change he should already have seen to. He had to brush sweat from his bangs when he had them back, and only barely managed to keep his breathing from turning ragged with effort.

Zhao Yunlan detached one hand from the covers, and slowly brought it up to slide his sunglasses off. He blinked his eyes wide, and gave Shen Wei a faint smile. "There you are." He said it as if he was glad. Shen Wei didn't understand.

Not wanting to keep Zhao Yunlan waiting, Shen Wei quickly stripped out of the flowing outer layers, aghast at how much of the white was stained in dried blood. He stopped when he was down to the innermost layer—sour-smelling white cotton, but it only had a touch of gore on the shirt sleeves and none on the trousers. It would have to suffice. Zhao Yunlan had closed his eyes again, and was keeping his body far too still. He hadn't bent his legs or splayed his knees or even crossed his ankles. He simply lay where Shen Wei had put him, breathing in an unnatural, steady rhythm.

It wasn't right, but it did give Shen Wei a chance to look at Zhao Yunlan without being observed. To note again that his skin was sallow, even in the dark, and his cheeks had hollowed. To feel the helpless outrage at the way Zhao Yunlan's usually neatly trimmed beard had been left to grow wild, scraggling up his jaw, and his too-long hair hung greasy and unkempt. It spoke of such neglect that Shen Wei found himself stifling angry words at his brother in his head. He could not risk it—if he reached out, even to curse him, Ye Zun might well make it back into his mind.

Which meant Shen Wei couldn't rage at his twin even as he took in the signs of his torture. Zhao Yunlan's torso was mottled in bruises from purple to yellow—there was a new one blooming over his sternum that made Shen Wei's own chest ache. He could see the unbalanced energy streams of older hurts poorly mended in a random pattern of scars. Some were plainly visible—others he knew he would only be able to feel as bumps and ridges on that smooth skin.

And then there was the worst of it. Covered by fresh bandages, but still not healed. Shen Wei had still not healed Zhao Yunlan right, just patched up the worst to stop the bleeding. He needed to. To see to the shoulder, the shoulder which he had—which had bled so much when he had—

Shen Wei nearly turned around. Thinking about that, and about the arm which he had made better but which Zhao Yunlan had already used so recklessly that Shen Wei feared the seam he had made in the bone might have unfused. Nearly left, before Zhao Yunlan could look at him with...with whatever would be in his eyes. But then who would heal him? A surgeon would need to first flay Zhao Yunlan open with a scalpel, and could do nothing but put the pieces of him that Shen Wei had broken back together. Couldn't urge them to knit and fuse and smooth away the damage. And who would take care of the rest of it? The marks left by the collar and shackles. The malnourishment, which would surely have exacerbated Zhao Yunlan's gastritis.

Shen Wei needed to cook. He hadn't been cooking for himself, but now Zhao Yunlan was here and there was no food. Zhao Yunlan was here and Shen Wei hadn't even offered him a glass of water, though his pale, chapped lips made it clear he must also be dehydrated. And clothes—a shave—

A safe place, away from Shen Wei.

The thought froze the turmoil that Shen Wei had been caught up in. Yes. That more than anything. He shouldn't leave. Not now. But he must follow his plan. He would.

When everything was done, he would leave.

That gave him the clarity he needed. He did still have a plan, and he would follow through on it. But first—first he was going to get Zhao Yunlan a glass of water.

Chapter Text

It had been so long since Zhao Yunlan waited for anything that wouldn't absolutely suck that he had kind of forgotten how to. No matter what he tried, his body picked up on the idea of waiting, and even if it was waiting for Shen Wei to de-Ye Zun, that didn't matter. Waiting was adrenaline time. Was bracing for a situation that called for fight or flight and then cancelled both options, leaving him with mouth off and get ready for the worst.

And maybe the sweet impressions of home—the comfortable bed smelling of detergent, much-laundered sheet soft under his palms—would have been more reassuring if he hadn't fallen out of a portal-induced haze and seen Ye Zun standing in the middle of their apartment. But he had, and even though he knew it most probably wasn't really Ye Zun, it wasn't like he could just opt to have a calm and sensible reaction.

He'd only just managed to say those things he couldn't leave unsaid. Things that he would rather risk saying out loud to the wrong twin than risk not saying at all.

Shen Wei couldn't leave. Zhao Yunlan understood why Shen Wei had wanted to bolt, back in the SID. Hated it, but would have let Shen Wei have some space if it wasn't for everything he feared. So he tried to make sure Shen Wei wouldn't go.

After Shen Wei stayed, all Zhao Yunlan could manage was to breathe. Breathe and rely on the kick of adrenaline to keep him awake against the leaden exhaustion for however long it took Shen Wei to do what Zhao Yunlan had asked him to. Selfishly, when the last thing Shen Wei must want would be the reminder that Zhao Yunlan had failed to recognize him.

Fuck. How had he—why hadn't he seen? His skull throbbed, the pain amplifying his nausea. He breathed, slow and controlled, counting as he did. In. Hold. Out.

In. Hold. Out.

It was more effort than it should be, making it difficult to even track Shen Wei around the room, but it was better than losing control of his stomach. Or of his emotions.

That tight control was the only reason he didn't jump, or scream, or worse, when a voice spoke his name in his ear.

"Yeah?" Zhao Yunlan opened his eyes, grateful that he didn't need the sunglasses in here. Shen Wei was looking at him. Shen Wei—the hair was right, and though he was still wearing a lot of white it was more like a pale version of his usual undergarments. Or—no, not usual. The ones that had been his usual ones, when Zhao Yunlan had known him so recently, long ago in the past.

"I brought you some water." Shen Wei sounded hesitant. He had a half-full mug in his hands, and Zhao Yunlan realized he was incredibly thirsty. There was an awkward shuffle to get into a position where he could drink more than he spilled, and he was too aware of how hesitant Shen Wei's hands were when they steadied him, but the warm water was the most delicious thing he'd ever had. No hint of sulphur or sediments on his tongue, and he didn't even need to ration it.

Sitting up left him a bit dizzy. Shen Wei's hands eased him back onto the pillow, and then disappeared. That—that wasn't what Zhao Yunlan wanted. But it made sense. Even as critically low on battery as he was, Zhao Yunlan couldn't forget what Shen Wei had just gone through, for his sake. And then, after coming back—somehow—Shen Wei had spent the last of his reserves healing Zhao Yunlan.

Zhao Yunlan, who had been happily unconscious. Who hadn't woken up even when Shen Wei apparently collapsed. And now he wasn't happy, but he couldn't open his eyes anymore, even though he had so many reasons to.

No. One reason to.

Just one reason, but it was the best and most gorgeous reason and it made Zhao Yunlan so distraught that he finally had Shen Wei right there and he couldn't even see him. Couldn't even be sure Shen Wei would be there when he managed to open his eyes again, because Shen Wei didn't want to be with him and Shen Wei might do something really stupid with his powers and end up on the floor where Zhao Yunlan couldn’t see him at all.

And it was Zhao Yunlan's job to be really stupid and end up on the floor.

Blacking out. Falling. That's what this felt like, only in slow-motion. When the Hallows knocked him out. The pull of gravity, the dissonant impressions. The strange firing of synapses—only instead of prescient bursts it was the worst of what had so recently happened flashing before him. He didn't think he could move, but he needed Shen Wei so much he shifted his hand. Caught Shen Wei's wrist, as if he'd known exactly where it would be when in fact he wasn't even sure which direction was up and which was down anymore.

"Stay," he begged. He could hear the word, so he must have said it out loud, and that unlocked more of them, tumbling out of his mouth around harsh, choked breaths, "Please. I'm sorry—I haven't—I wanted to say—so sorry."

Shen Wei lifted Zhao Yunlan's hand from his wrist. Took it in his own.

"Shen Wei."

That connection was all that mattered. Zhao Yunlan would hold on.

Shen Wei let himself be held. Let himself hold Zhao Yunlan's hand, squeezing it as Zhao Yunlan made half-unintelligible sounds around sobs that Shen Wei would have given anything in the world to stop. If he could lift this pain from Zhao Yunlan—but of course he, having caused it, could not. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do that would change what had happened. He had made his choices, and now he was witnessing Zhao Yunlan bearing the consequences of them.

Zhao Yunlan soon quieted, cheeks streaked with tears, still clutching Shen Wei. Tentatively, Shen Wei brushed the wetness away with his free hand. Zhao Yunlan didn't protest. Didn't stir at all, and when Shen Wei focused on his energies it was clear that Zhao Yunlan had sunk into desperately needed sleep.

Looking at him like this, Shen Wei couldn't help but be selfishly glad. Zhao Yunlan's pain was a terrible thing, of course. But Zhao Yunlan was here now. Resting in his own bed. Alive, and free of Ye Zun's cruelty. He would heal, and he would recover—Shen Wei wouldn't be there to see it, but he knew how strong Zhao Yunlan was. The SID would have their chief back. Haixing would have its Guardian. And that meant there was hope for Dixing, too—especially if Shen Wei could do his part.

Gently, he stroked matted hair away from Zhao Yunlan's forehead, his fingers itching to pick apart the thick snarls in it. But Zhao Yunlan needed other things more urgently. Healing. Nourishment. Something to keep him warm in the chilly night air.

And he needed to rest up away from reminders of his ordeal. Shen Wei's skin crawled in his stolen clothes, stained as they were with Zhao Yunlan's blood. It was difficult to shake the feeling that he was being irrational, but he needed—he needed to settle in himself before he dared touch Zhao Yunlan with his powers.

Shen Wei's wardrobe remained in his apartment across the hall. He propped the front doors to both apartments open, senses alert for any hint of danger. He had intended to hasten through the familiar task of choosing an outfit for the day, and instead found himself beset by indecision. It wasn't as if he believed the clothes he wore would make a difference to Zhao Yunlan. Anything he could grab to wear here would be better than what Zhao Yunlan had last seen him in, and yet—and yet it felt like it mattered. That he had made too many careless choices already, and needed to get this one right.

After far too many minutes away from Zhao Yunlan's side he returned. Put all thoughts of his outfit aside and set to finishing as many tasks as possible with the energy at his disposal. He couldn't risk overdoing it again. Before, when they'd just come back and Zhao Yunlan was bleeding and broken and unresponsive in his arms, he hadn't been able to keep from channeling every bit of power into stopping the blood flow, and knitting pieces of broken bone together before they could do more damage. Even when it left him weak and shaking, Shen Wei hadn't stopped, because he hadn't known then what he did now about Ye Zun's ability to invite himself back into his unguarded mind.

That thought itself might be dangerous. Shen Wei shut it down. Concentrated on filling the rice cooker with the correct ratio of water to rice and changed the setting to congee before turning it on. The refrigerator—which he had kept meticulously clean after Da Qing had complained about the smell, but added nothing to for weeks—had yielded three century eggs and half a jar of spicy pickled bamboo. It would make for a meager meal, but it was all he had.

Zhao Yunlan lay where Shen Wei had tucked him under the covers, after dressing him in the worn t-shirt and sweatpants he favored when it was cold enough that he wore anything at all to bed. The urge to lie down next to Zhao Yunlan rose like a drowning wave, crashing against his resolve. Pummeled Shen Wei with the temptation to heal Zhao Yunlan while nestled close to his body. To rest for a while, feeling the slow rise and fall of Zhao Yunlan's chest under his hand.

No. No, that wasn't anything he could do anymore. Wasn't anything he would ever do again, and that was how it was. How it had to be. Shen Wei should be grateful he could sit on the edge of Zhao Yunlan's bed, and reach out to expose a bandaged shoulder.

Shen Wei was splaying his fingers, balancing the dangerous energies inside to a careful release, when he heard a sound. A thump. Not from the hallway, but from behind the curtains in the alcove. Shen Wei had surged to his feet before he realized that the scratching sound and low creak he heard was the window being opened wide enough to admit a rotund feline body.

Da Qing bounded in on all fours, head held high to keep an awkwardly swinging cloth bag from getting tangled in his legs. He stopped dead when he caught sight of Shen Wei, surging to two feet and grabbing the bag in a hand. There was a yellow gleam in his eye when he demanded, "Where is Lao Zhao?"

Shen Wei stepped aside so that Da Qing could see Zhao Yunlan in the bed behind him. "Oh," Da Qing said, and rushed over, falling to his knees by the bed. "Oh, you did take him, and you were here—I told them!"

Them. The SID. Which Shen Wei had left. With Zhao Yunlan.

It was his own turn to go, "Oh."

"How is he?" Da Qing looked at Shen Wei without accusation.

"Sleeping," Shen Wei said. "I'm sorry, I should have...contacted you?"

"It's fine, we figured neither of you had phones so—here." Da Qing hauled a smartphone out of his bag and put it on the nightstand. "Wang Zheng set it up for the chief. It's got his address book, and—" Da Qing gave Shen Wei a considering look. "Stuff. That will be useful for when he wakes up."

"Thank you," Shen Wei said. "Do you want to stay? I could call the SID right now and let them know..."

Da Qing shook his head. "Lao Chu is waiting for me with the Jeep downstairs. I need to let him know we can call the search party off. And Xiao Guo brought snacks."

Shen Wei nodded.

Da Qing tilted his head at him, then stood up in a fluid motion. He looked down at Zhao Yunlan's face, and his eyes glittered. "Thank you," he said. "For—for keeping your promise."

What promise? Shen Wei blinked, trying to follow.

"You promised to protect him. And you did. When none of us could—when all of us left him behind. You brought him home."

"I—"

"Thank you," Da Qing said again. Then, "I'll be back later. Leave the window open." With that he took off, as always surprisingly nimble for a cat of his girth.

Shen Wei looked at the phone and wondered if he should make that call. Apologize to Zhu Hong for his oversight in first accidentally removing Zhao Yunlan from their care, and then not informing her of where they had gone. But Da Qing had said he would pass that information along, and Shen Wei had already waited too long to see to Zhao Yunlan's injuries. He thought Zhu Hong would understand.

Zhao Yunlan drifted from solid sleep to flimsy waking, disoriented enough that he wasn't sure which impressions and memories were real and which were still part of his dreams. The various aches and pains in his body made him depressingly certain the really elaborate nightmare he could recall had been more real that not. But the other stuff—the warm smell of rice cooker steam filling the air, the comfortable mattress, the perfectly familiar city noises filtering in on the fresh air from an open window...That all felt too good. It felt like being home. And he did remember some stuff that could explain that, and it was all very realistic, but he'd had good dreams before.

Had the dreams ever made him feel such sharp cramps of nauseous hunger, though? And the pressure on his bladder—that had to be real. So he was at least mostly awake, and should probably face whatever was happening rather than curl into himself and let the last bit of sleep absorb the worst of it.

Zhao Yunlan made a discontented noise as he rolled over on his side. It hurt less than expected, and didn't immediately banish any of the nice things he'd noticed. It also caused something nearby to move.

"Zhao Yunlan?" Shen Wei's voice was better than smelling a filling meal on a hungry stomach. Better than finding himself in his own bed. It made the tension in Zhao Yunlan turn to a wobbly kind of joy, teetering between guilt and relief and love so fierce it hurt.

"Hey." Zhao Yunlan cracked his eyes open, mindful of how they had reacted to light before, and found everything pleasantly dim. Bright daylight glowed at the edges of the curtains—the only hint that he really was above ground. And there, right there, on a stool pulled up close to the bed, Shen Wei was leaning forward. Not touching him, but there. His heart swelled, tender with feeling. "You stayed."

"I...yes." Shen Wei blinked at him from behind his glasses.

When had he gotten his glasses? And the beat's hesitation there, like an invisible edge—Zhao Yunlan started pushing himself upright. There was so much he hadn't gotten to say...yesterday? However long had passed, however long Shen Wei had waited here.

"Zhao Yunlan!" Shen Wei stood, and reached out as if to stop him. Hovered there, his hand not quite on Zhao Yunlan's shoulder.

"Help me to the bathroom?" Zhao Yunlan asked. Maybe he shouldn't be putting off the apologies he owed for making Shen Wei this skittish around him, but he wouldn't be able to focus on any kind of heartfelt conversation with his bladder screaming for attention. He tried to tell himself it wasn't cheating, getting Shen Wei to put a firm hand under his elbow and an arm around his waist. After all, he really wasn't doing great right now and they'd both be equally inconvenienced if Zhao Yunlan fell and hit his head on the toilet. But once he had Shen Wei's hands on him he could have tried to minimize the contact rather than leaning into it as he did. Revelling in the freshly showered scent of Shen Wei's skin, in the press of his body against Zhao Yunlan's. In the suit that—that made no sense right now. Why was Shen Wei dressed for class?

Was this—was this really happening?

Vivid evidence such as fuck that hurt when he put any strain on his left shoulder, and the uncomfortable churning of his stomach, and the agh no when he automatically switched on the bathroom light and almost blinded himself trying to cover his eyes while Shen Wei switched it off, pointed to yes. But as Shen Wei settled Zhao Yunlan back into bed and went to get him congee, it struck him again how strange it was that Shen Wei had dressed for work rather than home.

And...not just dressed for class, but dressed in the same outfit Zhao Yunlan had first seen him in. If anyone had looked in Zhao Yunlan's memories, they would have known that. Would have known that Zhao Yunlan had expressed an unrestrained kind of enthusiasm for seeing Shen Wei in that outfit ever since he had been allowed to do more than look. That Zhao Yunlan still hadn't gotten over the particular delight that was closing that vertiginous loop of going from a first lingering touch of Shen Wei's hand on his to having his own hands all over Shen Wei.

But if it was some kind of illusion, why would it come with so many shitty details? Like how Shen Wei kept avoiding his eyes, increasing the guilt he felt. And like Shen Wei apologizing for the paucity of the meal—which was ridiculous because it was warm and filling and perfect and it wasn't his fault it made Zhao Yunlan feel sick. Shouldn't a trick make him want to believe in it, like the dreams Zhu Hong and Chu Shuzhi had nearly been trapped in?

Fuck. Zhao Yunlan sagged forward, clutching his skull. It pounded dully, like it was trying to knock some sense into him. Yeah, this was happening, and he needed to deal with it rather than hope everything would just—disappear. It wasn't going to. How hard could it be to just admit he was here, with Shen Wei, and that they really needed to talk and not just dance around each other with careful, it's hot and I'm fine it's fine when it so clearly wasn't.

"Zhao Yunlan?" Shen Wei spoke his name with such worry, and then didn't sit down on the bed or place gentle fingers to Zhao Yunlan's temples, ready to soothe a persistent headache. It made Zhao Yunlan's eyes feel wet and his throat close up. He sat up slowly, raising his head and twisting his hands together in his lap.

"I'm…I haven't..." A deep breath, as Shen Wei's frown of concern grew sharper. "I'm sorry. I should have said so earlier, and I'm sorry, I just—what you did…"

Shen Wei managed to both stiffen his spine and look like he was being crushed under some invisible weight at once. "I…"

Zhao Yunlan cut him off. "If I'd known—I wouldn't have asked it of you, I swear. And I'm—I'm not sorry to be out of there, but—" He was choking on the memory of blood and desperation, so glad to be safe and so terribly angry at the cost Ye Zun had exacted for his freedom. Shen Wei was watching him in horrified silence, and Zhao Yunlan tried to at least hold his gaze.

"Asked it?" Shen Wei's voice barely carried. "Zhao Yunlan. You…"

"I didn't know—I didn't realize what Ye Zun would do to stop you." At the sound of his brother's name, Shen Wei flinched, and Zhao Yunlan swallowed hard. He was fucking this up—he didn't want to be, but Shen Wei was just standing there, looking as sick and shocky as Zhao Yunlan felt.

"I'm sorry." The misery curling through his chest gripped him more tightly as he spoke. "I made you go through all that, and now I've just been sitting around after you fixed me up and made me food and I know you wanted to go but—" His breath ran ragged as he forged ahead. "I thought I'd lost you, Shen Wei. And I can't—I can't do that again, I can't—even for a bit, if you leave, I can't."

Shen Wei's eyes darted to the side, and Zhao Yunlan felt his despondent heart sink even further. "I—I can't stay."

A muscle in Zhao Yunlan's jaw bunched. He half-nodded, then clutched at the covers when that caused the nausea to surge. He wanted to be well enough to tell Shen Wei to go, that it would be fine, that he would wait, but he couldn't. He was absolutely gripped by the conviction that if he let Shen Wei go now, he would never see him again, and that—he couldn't live with that. "Why?" Zhao Yunlan's voice cracked. "Shen Wei. Please…"

"It's—it's complicated," Shen Wei said. "You should rest. I will be able to heal you more soon, but you shouldn't strain your body." He put on a smile.

It made Zhao Yunlan feel cold, looking at that smile. "Shen Wei," he said. "I'm not going to rest while you're—you're feeling like this."

"I'm fine," Shen Wei said, so quickly Zhao Yunlan almost laughed in hopeless horror.

"You're not," Zhao Yunlan said. "You couldn't be—you aren't. We aren't, it's—" He gestured, impatient with his own uselessness, his voice as raw as if he had been screaming. "It's fucked up, okay? And I'm sorry—I'm sorry I can't make anything better, but I...I can't be without you right now."

Shen Wei actually looked at him then. Properly, without his eyes gliding off to focus on the wall. "You mean. You need healing?"

At that Zhao Yunlan did laugh, incredulous. "No! I mean that I need you. And I know—I know that can't be easy for you but—"

"For me?"

Zhao Yunlan felt his whole face contracting in confusion. "Yes?"

"But I thought…" Shen Wei blinked, very rapidly. It wasn't the what a coincidence that you'd find me here at your crime scene, Chief Zhao that Zhao Yunlan still remembered with fond exasperation. It was pure astonishment, and it made Zhao Yunlan sit straighter up in bed.

"Shen Wei. What did you think?" His heart fluttered, with a touch of that wobbly joy from before as he felt a shift in perception, something intangible and yet fraught with meaning.

"You said...you said you hadn't realized. What Ye Zun would do, when you asked me—when you said—"

"That I was sorry for what I made you do?"

"Made me?" Shen Wei asked.

"Yes." They were both staring at each other now, Zhao Yunlan growing more incredulous and Shen Wei...Shen Wei was very still and very pale.

"Shen Wei. Did you—did you miss that I was apologizing?"

"Apologizing for what?" Shen Wei sounded genuinely baffled.

"Everything! For making you come down there, and taking Ye Zun's place and having to do all those things and I didn't even know!"

"But," Shen Wei said. "Zhao Yunlan. I hurt you."

"I know! Because I asked you to." It was strange how getting worked up was making everything ache less, except for his heart.

"You didn't. You didn't even know it was me—"

"And I'm so, so sorry. Xiao Wei. That shouldn't have—"

"I hurt you."

"Are you even listening to me?" Zhao Yunlan threw his hands wide. No wonder Shen Wei had looked so shocky—he was. Where Zhao Yunlan had gotten a chance to break down and process things a bit Shen Wei...hadn't. And clearly wasn't. It was—horrible, to see him hurting himself like this, again. And Zhao Yunlan felt like shit, because even if he hadn't chosen to do this to Shen Wei he hadn't managed to protect him, either.

"Yes. Of course I am listening, Zhao Yunlan. But there is nothing to blame you for—you were Ye Zun's prisoner."

"And you were the one he was trying to hurt." Mostly, at least. Zhao Yunlan preferred not to think too hard about it.

Shen Wei looked at Zhao Yunlan, uncomprehending. "He hasn't been able to do any harm to me." And—wait, what? Hadn't been able to—how would Shen Wei expect Ye Zun to harm him, and also why wasn't Shen Wei listening?

"Ye Zun used you, Shen Wei. It wasn't you—what he made you do, it wasn't…"

"It was." Shen Wei's voice sounded terribly steady, but although he had answered Zhao Yunlan's question it was almost as if he hadn't heard any of what Zhao Yunlan had been saying.

Because he hadn't. He was looking at Zhao Yunlan, and talking to him, but he had gone off and was…

Freaking out. Like only Shen Wei could—by retreating into himself and accepting that everything bad that had ever happened must somehow be his own fault. Because of course someone who had lived his life for others, serving as a leader and dealer of justice, wouldn't know how to not take excessive responsibility. He was a man who thought that because Zhao Yunlan had saved his life, that meant somehow Zhao Yunlan wanted him to sacrifice that life for him instead of living with him.

Oh, Shen Wei. Zhao Yunlan felt a rush of love, and anger, and fierce protectiveness. You're not a knife, he had told Shen Wei before they parted, and Shen Wei hadn't fully understood. Just like he wasn't understanding now, because Ye Zun had turned him into a weapon again when he used Shen Wei to hurt Zhao Yunlan. Ye Zun had seen that Zhao Yunlan mattered to his brother, had taken that love and forged it into a poisoned dagger. And Zhao Yunlan wasn't going to have that—wasn't going to let Ye Zun use him to keep hurting Shen Wei.

"Okay, that's it," Zhao Yunlan said out loud, and swung his legs over the edge of the bed where he found a pair of slippers waiting for him.

"What are you doing?" And there was Shen Wei, actually connecting with what was happening at last.

"I'm going to make a really stupid and dramatic point," Zhao Yunlan said. "Because that usually gets you to listen."

"Zhao Yunlan—you shouldn't be walking—I am listening."

"Mm, no," Zhao Yunlan said, catching himself on the back of the couch, and then making it to the kitchen island before he had to take another break. He quite possibly wasn't thinking entirely straight, and there were bits that hurt and he felt hot with shame with how upset Shen Wei was, but he didn’t believe either apologizing more or letting Shen Wei leave was going to fix anything. Yeah, they were both completely messed up by what had happened—all of it, going back to the first time Ye Zun showed up, pretty much—but Zhao Yunlan wasn't going to let Shen Wei just take all that guilt and run.

So Zhao Yunlan straightened, made his noodle legs walk him into the kitchen, and grabbed a knife that had been left to dry by the sink. He had reached out at random, but when he got a look at what he was holding he almost flung it away from himself, as if he'd found it covered in live wasps.

It was the same knife. The one that had drawn Shen Wei's blood and dark energy. That had fallen to the kitchen floor and that Zhao Yunlan hadn't touched at all since. Instead of throwing it he clenched it tighter in his fist, like he was preparing to charge into a fight.

Shen Wei's confusion had turned to alarm. "Zhao Yunlan. Be careful."

Zhao Yunlan's legs chose that moment to go all weak on him, enough that he had to catch himself with his hip against the counter. Shen Wei approached with urgent concern driving him into Zhao Yunlan's personal space. "Zhao Yunlan?"

Chapter Text

It was a mirror image of a nightmare. Zhao Yunlan shook with a chuckle that felt dangerously close to sweeping him away. That night in the kitchen after he'd gotten his vision back had hurt his heart in ways he hadn't known he could hurt, seeing Shen Wei injuring himself. Hearing Shen Wei professing that the pain and damage he was suffering was worth it. And now—now he knew that Shen Wei could be hurt more deeply, and that he himself could feel that pain more keenly, and they were back in the fucking kitchen with a knife.

Shen Wei had stopped just short of touching him, eyes wide and wounded. "What…"

"If I wanted to," Zhao Yunlan said, his fist too tight around the kitchen knife's handle, his heart trying to beat out of his chest, "would you let me hurt you?"

Maybe the question took Shen Wei by surprise. Zhao Yunlan hoped the question took him by surprise. But his answer came so quickly, so steadily. "Yes. Of course. Zhao Yunlan—"

Fuck. Fuck. "Come, then."

Again, no hesitation. Shen Wei stepped into Zhao Yunlan's reach, eyes searching his face for—something. Stood there, quiet. Waiting. Hands lifting, then dropping to his sides. Passive. Awkward in the way that intimacy could be awkward—what to do with your hands when you weren't sure what you were allowed to touch.

Zhao Yunlan's heart laboured to beat against the pain. He slowly brought the knife up at an angle, until the tip of the slim blade rested against Shen Wei's left shoulder.

At last, a reaction. Shen Wei blinked. Swallowed.

"You'd let me do this?" Zhao Yunlan pushed lightly. The tip of the knife caught on the fabric of the gray vest. Shen Wei didn't shift.

"Yes."

This time what Zhao Yunlan smothered wasn't a laugh at all. "Why?"

"Because…" Shen Wei paused, as if taken aback by how very obvious the answer was. "Because you asked."

"You'd let me stab you because I asked first?"

"Because you deserve it," Shen Wei said, fierce now. Arguing for Zhao Yunlan's right to run him through with kitchen implements.

Zhao Yunlan squeezed his eyes shut, then blinked rapidly, fighting another strong surge of nausea. "Why?"

Shen Wei seemed confused that he wasn't getting stabbed, and also like he wanted to flinch away from the topic as he wasn't flinching away from the steel pressed against him. "Because I hurt you."

"So if I hurt you, we're even? Is that it?"

Shen Wei was breathing hard now. Zhao Yunlan was close enough that he could feel each harsh exhalation against his own skin. "I—"

"If I do this—" Zhao Yunlan's hand was shaking. "Will that make you feel better?"

Shen Wei was staring at him, as intently as if he was trying to see past Zhao Yunlan's eyeballs and into his brain. Good luck—not even Zhao Yunlan himself really knew what was going on there now. "Zhao Yunlan. If it makes you—"

"I'm not talking about me!" Zhao Yunlan furiously flung his free arm out. "I'm talking about you! You're the one who wants to leave! Who can't stand to be near me!"

Shen Wei looked stricken. "Zhao Yunlan. No—I swear that I don't want to leave your side."

The relief was such that Zhao Yunlan had to lean more of his weight against the counter. He had guessed that was true—that Shen Wei did want him, still, as much as he wanted Shen Wei. But he hadn't known for sure. "Okay, good." It took the pure hurt out of the anger, but he still had a knife in his hand and didn't have Shen Wei's arms around him. "And if I stab you? Then what? Will that make you want to leave?"

"No," Shen Wei said, with that overwhelming certainty.

"Then why the fuck do you think what you did to me is any different? Why do you think I would want you to leave? That I would want you to stand there like I haven't been dying to kiss you?"

"I—"

"When I was the one who told you to do it in the first place!" Zhao Yunlan threw his hand in the air at Shen Wei's blank look. "The first time you showed up, and I recognized you, I told you to do anything you had to." The words were cut-glass clear in his memory. "Remember?"

"Yes. Yes, but—"

"But what? You just said it yourself—you'd be fine getting stabbed if that's what I wanted. So why the fuck can't it be okay for me to want you to do some temporary damage and then fix me up? Why should you be the only one allowed to hurt?"

"Because I don't want to hurt you!" Shen Wei's voice was pure anguish.

"Then stop!"

Shen Wei looked stricken. "What?"

They stared at each other. Zhao Yunlan felt flayed open, and Shen Wei's eyes were dark with pain. He wanted to gather him close and hold him until everything was better, but he wasn't sure he could, yet. Wasn't sure Shen Wei would let him. So he drew a deep breath, and tried to find the right words to say to get Shen Wei away from the edge of the precipice they were on. "What you're doing. What you've been doing since I woke up at the SID—you trying to put distance between us. It fucking hurts. And I thought it was because of what I had done, but...but you really can forgive me for that, can't you?"

"You haven't done—"

Zhao Yunlan interrupted by putting his finger to his own lips. "Hush. Shut up. Just—" He jabbed Shen Wei gently with the kitchen knife. "Pretend I stabbed you, okay? And then answer me this—if you were bleeding all over the kitchen floor, would you be able to forgive me?"

Shen Wei's face was a picture of baffled frustration, but he said, "Yes."

"Okay. Now listen to me. Stabbing me and—and the other stuff," Zhao Yunlan said quickly, not wanting Shen Wei to dwell on the details. Not really wanting to dwell on them himself. "I forgive you for it." Not that he had anything to forgive Shen Wei for—but this might be what Shen Wei needed to hear.

"Zhao Yunlan," Shen Wei said, a tremor in his voice.

"Do you regret saving me?"

"No!"

"Then please, Xiao Wei. Don't hold it against me?" He tried to say it lightly, but his voice cracked.

"I'm not," Shen Wei said urgently. "I'm not, I would never."

"Good," Zhao Yunlan whispered, and dropped the knife from numb fingers onto the countertop. "Now try doing the same for yourself?"

Shen Wei's arms came around him before he realized that he was falling. Caught him as the air was leaving his lungs, and when he tried to stand Shen Wei was the only thing holding him up. Holding him tight against the kitchen counter. The crush of his crisp cotton shirt and fine wool of his vest felt like another homecoming. Shen Wei's body was taut and tense against his for all the wrong reasons, but it felt so right to have him there. There for Zhao Yunlan to lean against, burying his face in the crook of Shen Wei's neck. Rough stubble dragging across smooth skin, warming under his shallow breaths. Holding on and on with tremors running through him as the adrenaline ebbed in his system. Murmuring, "I love you," and "I missed you," and "Shen Wei. Xiao Wei. Baby."

"Yunlan." It always sounded so beautiful when Shen Wei said it. Even now, even with his voice breaking as he spoke into Zhao Yunlan's hair. "I was so afraid, I didn't know—"

"Yeah. Yeah, me too—I thought you got away, but he told me—" Zhao Yunlan didn't particularly want to start crying, but now that he had blown up at Shen Wei it was like uncorking a cursed champagne bottle of misery, and now there was nothing stopping all of these other feelings from spouting out of him. And he was so tired. So tired of pretending not to hurt. He fisted his hands in the silk of Shen Wei's vest lining, crushing it as he got Shen Wei's shoulder wet.

"Oh," Shen Wei whispered. "Oh no, Yunlan."

"I didn't know if I'd ever see you again," he gasped, somehow getting the words out as Shen Wei's arms tightened around his shaking body. "And that was the worst. Not any of the other stuff, just—we didn't have enough time, before, and if that was it for us—if we'd never—"

Shen Wei's hand cradled his nape and held him as he nuzzled the top of his head, and when Zhao Yunlan lifted his face Shen Wei was right there, sweeping him up in a fierce kiss. Zhao Yunlan drank him in, knowing now what it was like to be truly starved—knowing too that he needed Shen Wei more than he had ever needed anything else in his life. The kiss was sticky with tears, tasting of salt and congee, and Zhao Yunlan felt Shen Wei wiping itchy dampness from his cheeks, from the corners of his eyes.

It was Shen Wei who drew back, carefully, when Zhao Yunlan snuffled a wet, gasping breath that didn't give him nearly enough oxygen. Cupped Zhao Yunlan's face with a trembling hand, and it was okay because while he wanted to do more kissing, staring at Shen Wei was also good. He was so stunning to look at in his frantic concern. His glasses were smudged and his red-rimmed eyes were so wide and his cheekbones were—were they even more cutting than usual? Had Shen Wei lost weight? Zhao Yunlan was about to ask when a handkerchief interrupted him. Shen Wei went to wipe his face and Zhao Yunlan twitched back on instinct—not just from the unexpected touch, but because the last time Shen Wei had brandished a handkerchief at him it had been anything but gentle.

When Zhao Yunlan saw that the motion had stopped Shen Wei dead in his tracks, he breathed a near-silent laugh, and let Shen Wei's hand on his back take more of his weight. Then he reached up and plucked the askew glasses from Shen Wei's face, only a little unsteady as he put them down on the kitchen counter with a click, and then fumbled Shen Wei's tightly buttoned shirt open. Two buttons. "There," Zhao Yunlan said, pleased, and repeated his words from earlier. "There you are."

"Yes?" Puzzled, Shen Wei waited another moment, and then took Zhao Yunlan's crooked smile at him for the invitation it was to have a go with the handkerchief.

Not having a sticky face was definitely nice, and Shen Wei took such care with him. But it reminded Zhao Yunlan unpleasantly that his recent accommodation's entire bathing facilities had consisted of a bucket of very sulphury water changed at irregular intervals, because the room service—like everything else—had been terrible. Someone had cleaned his torso before bandaging it, but he was still wearing the same jeans he had been for almost a month. He squeezed his eyes shut, and Shen Wei was there with a dry corner of the finely woven handkerchief. He'd missed twenty-five days of developments in Haixing, and caught up on none of them. There was so much Zhao Yunlan hadn't done and he was just standing here and—and now that he had started thinking about how dirty he was he couldn't stop. He didn't understand how Shen Wei could stand to be so near—how Shen Wei could stand to even touch him.

"Zhao Yunlan?" Shen Wei was frowning, he could hear it.

"Ah, it's just..." Zhao Yunlan swallowed around the aching tightness in his throat. Shen Wei. Shen Wei had been doing—badly. And Zhao Yunlan still had so many questions. He should be focusing on that—should be calling the SID on the phone Da Qing had left to catch up. Should be, but couldn't. All he could do was keep Shen Wei close. "Could you help me run a bath?"

A mild citron scent wafted up on the steam from the bathtub as Shen Wei shampooed Zhao Yunlan's hair, methodically working out tangles and combing it into separate strands. Even when there was an occasional snag, Zhao Yunlan didn't complain. When he had finally gotten all of the snarls out enough that he could run his fingers through Zhao Yunlan's hair unimpeded, he rinsed the shampoo out and then applied more. This time he went deeper—fingertips working circles into Zhao Yunlan's scalp through the lather. After a few moments, this elicited a sigh of contentment so rich it felt like it made his own lungs expand.

Zhao Yunlan had insisted on showering before the bath, and while he had let Shen Wei help, he had wanted to do as much of the grooming as possible by himself. He had accepted Shen Wei's support—asked for it with no hesitation. But then he had withdrawn into a brittle silence as he sloughed off such layers of grime that the water had been visibly murky even in the dim light of the single towel-draped lamp.

Finally getting Zhao Yunlan into a hot bathtub had seemed to help him unwind. Fortunately his injuries were healed enough that the soaking didn't seem to pain him, or cause more bleeding.

"Mm," Zhao Yunlan mumbled, his voice soft but steady. "You're fantastic." He leaned toward the side of the tub where Shen Wei was sitting on a stool, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Shen Wei responded by sliding his fingers to the back of Zhao Yunlan's skull and further down, until he was kneading the stiff muscles of the neck, mindful of the remaining bruises ringing it. The noise of approval from Zhao Yunlan made Shen Wei's heart catch—it was so intimately familiar as it echoed off the bathroom tiles, so full of pleasure in a way he had been sure he would never hear again.

But even after everything, here Zhao Yunlan was. Wet head bent, offering Shen Wei the beautiful curve of his nape, the jutting wings of his shoulderblades. Putting his body in Shen Wei's hands, entirely without reservations. Shen Wei's chest tightened at that unearned trust, but even when he moved his hands nearer Zhao Yunlan's injured shoulder, Zhao Yunlan didn't refuse him. Only shifted slightly to give Shen Wei better access, the water rippling around him. Shen Wei was the one who pulled away, grabbing the shower head to rinse the shampoo out of Zhao Yunlan's hair.

"Aw, why'd you stop?" Zhao Yunlan said, spluttering a little. Shen Wei hurried to turn off the water.

"Stop?"

"With your hands." Zhao Yunlan flicked long wet bangs out of his face and gave him a grin, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to ask Shen Wei to touch him. "You're good with your hands—I've been telling you forever."

"My hands," Shen Wei said, trying to win time to ward off the thoughts of his hands on Zhao Yunlan's body in Dixing, his hands covered in Zhao Yunlan's blood.

"Yeah. I think—I definitely need some conditioner. And you know." He shimmed his shoulders. "While you're at it?"

With that kind of invitation, Shen Wei couldn't very well refuse. He rubbed the conditioner in, massaging Zhao Yunlan's scalp to pleased huffs of breath. Then he traced Zhao Yunlan's sternocleidomastoid muscles with gentle pressure from the back of his skull and down his neck, mirroring the gesture on either side. There were bruises to avoid, still, but Zhao Yunlan didn't seem to care, responding with low moans of approval. As Shen Wei moved to the trapezius he lost himself in those sounds, and the sensation of pressing his fingers into firm flesh, searching out junctions of tension to release. It wasn't until he felt the uneven ridge of a fresh scar under his thumb that he realized—and then he couldn't stop, not without drawing Zhao Yunlan out of his relaxed stupor.

Shen Wei kept his touch as light as he could when he passed over the exit wound in Zhao Yunlan's shoulder. The unbroken skin was pink and healing well, but underneath that the nerves and sinews and bone had not recovered in full from the brutal damage inflicted. But though Zhao Yunlan could not have missed Shen Wei's hand brushing the same spot he had torn open not so long ago, he could feel no mounting tension, no sudden movements. Just that same content basking in Shen Wei's touch as always, happy and pliant in a way that made Shen Wei see that it was drops of water covering Zhao Yunlan's skin, not blood, and reminded him that the only thing he could smell was citrusy conditioner.

Having massaged the span of Zhao Yunlan's shoulders, which was all of him that wasn't submerged, Shen Wei reluctantly picked up the shower to rinse out his hair. Like a cat seeking to prolong the attention given to it, Zhao Yunlan nudged his head against Shen Wei's wrist. "Thanks," he said, thick and slow, as if he was already half asleep.

Shen Wei stilled, and then took a breath for courage before he leaned forward to press a kiss to Zhao Yunlan's soaking wet hair. Zhao Yunlan laughed, low and wonderful, and listed to the side as he kissed the damp skin of Shen Wei's bare arm. "You are too good to me, baby," he said, as light and easy as his kiss, and Shen Wei felt warm down to his bones. "And. I could stay here for like. A week. It's so good. But—the water's getting kinda lukewarm? And also—this." Zhao Yunlan made an inarticulate groan and gestured vaguely at his face. "Kind of driving me nuts."

"Of course. Let's just rinse you off." It wasn't difficult to extrapolate what Zhao Yunlan meant. He was as fastidious and particular about his grooming as he was haphazard about keeping the apartment clean and tidy, and he had clearly not been allowed use of a razor. Shen Wei had anticipated it would come up, and prepared.

With the bathwater draining, and Shen Wei's back turned, Zhao Yunlan tried to stand and step out on his own. Shen Wei caught him before it could get beyond uncoordinated swaying, and had scolded him for his impatience and failure to realize that the prolonged heat would have had an effect on his balance before realizing that with everything that had happened, maybe he had no right to talk about Zhao Yunlan's health. But Zhao Yunlan himself just grinned, and let Shen Wei towel him off sitting in the tub before bundling him into a fluffy robe and settling him on the low stool Shen Wei had vacated.

Zhao Yunlan's eyes lit up when Shen Wei started laying out the shaving kit. It had been a purchase to make sure his apartment contained all the things Professor Shen of Dragon City University, who was not a Dixingren with very finely tuned control of his body, might need. Zhao Yunlan had found it after the time for such subterfuge was long past, and—like a child having discovered an exciting new toy—insisted on Shen Wei demonstrating its use.

It had been a while since they'd had the luxury of time enough to indulge in anything but the bare necessities of survival and togetherness. Zhao Yunlan's electric razor was perfectly serviceable, after all, and didn't need any elaborate preparations. But Shen Wei could admit that he had missed this. The slow ritual of it, the precise steps. The way Zhao Yunlan went still and quiet as he almost never was even before Shen Wei got the razor out. He waited patiently when Shen Wei's attention was elsewhere—soaking the shaving brush, lathering the shaving cream—and closed his eyes in apparent relish when Shen Wei first smoothed oil into wild-grown whiskers and skin, and then again when he applied the thick foam in an even coat.

Possibly it was just that Zhao Yunlan was tired, with the state his body was in, and after everything that had happened. But he didn't crane his head to look when Shen Wei got the straight razor out. He did not shift even when Shen Wei paused to give it a few passes on the strop—he should have done this after the last time he used it, but it had been long enough that he wanted to be sure.

Coming up behind Zhao Yunlan, cutting blade at the ready, Shen Wei felt—apprehensive. Even with Zhao Yunlan's forgiveness dazzling the shadows in his heart, he was too aware of how very easy it was to break Zhao Yunlan's skin, and more. The hum of the bathroom fan and Zhao Yunlan's slow breathing weren't loud enough to cover the echo of the sick crack of bone that would not stop reverberating in Shen Wei's own marrow.

And yet—and yet Zhao Yunlan showed no outward signs of the hesitation that made Shen Wei steel his hand against faint tremors. It was as if—as if he really, truly meant it when he had said he placed none of the blame for what had happened on Shen Wei. As if it hadn't even given him cause to be wary, or demand assurances. Shen Wei in turn could give none—what would he say? I won't hurt you this time? He wouldn't. Never. Never again. But his heart no longer held the same certainty that the decision he had made last night—the decision that had bolstered him as he did what he had to do—was the right way to honor that promise. The clarity he'd had then was now muddled by an entirely new possibility. One expressed in every languid movement Zhao Yunlan made as he leaned into Shen Wei and tilted his head back, baring his throat.

"This good?"

A flutter of something akin to terror behind Shen Wei's ribs made it difficult to answer. "Yes."

"Sure you don't need more light?"

It had not even occurred to Shen Wei that the bathroom tended to be rather brighter when they did this. "I'm sure."

There could be no delay after that. Maybe he should have said no—gone to remove the towel from the lamp, left to fetch a different chair. But with Zhao Yunlan still in his robe, damp hair a towel-rumpled mess, Shen Wei could not let him wait. Zhao Yunlan needed this, and then he needed to be properly dried off and clothed and put back into bed to rest.

Making the first stroke, Shen Wei's hand was steady and sure, and left behind a swath of nearly perfectly smooth cheek. He exhaled, long and slow, and saw Zhao Yunlan's lips curl in a satisfied smile. It made the next sweep of the razor's blade easier, and he soon found a rhythm. Rinse and stroke, gradually revealing Zhao Yunlan's skin and then covering it with foam again for a second pass against the grain of his hair, getting any stubble the first pass had missed and leaving the beard and mustache both with their usual neatly trimmed edges.

The silence felt clear and calm, like the air after a storm has scattered to sun and wind. Sometimes when they did this they talked—sometimes Zhao Yunlan talked, a lot, about what he wanted to do after Shen Wei's hands were no longer busy with the razor. But there was no need for words in this moment. And while the pain of what he had done to Zhao Yunlan was still acute, Shen Wei was strong enough now to stay and endure it, for Zhao Yunlan's sake. Zhao Yunlan, who took such obvious pleasure in resting his weight against Shen Wei's thighs, in letting Shen Wei do this one thing to help erase what had been done to him.

When Shen Wei was done and Zhao Yunlan rinsed his face, Shen Wei was right there, close enough to offer support. But the air had cooled, and though he had made a few complaints about stiff joints standing up, Zhao Yunlan didn't waver. Not bending down, not rinsing. But when he straightened—Shen Wei saw Zhao Yunlan's eyes dart to his own reflection in the mirror, and then he was clutching the edge of the sink.

Shen Wei was about to wonder if there was something wrong, when Zhao Yunlan turned to him and beamed. "Thanks," he said. "That's perfect. I—I needed that."

"I'm glad," Shen Wei said, because he was, and though he owed a thousand more apologies he didn't think Zhao Yunlan would want one now.

And Zhao Yunlan smiled at that, too, and slung an arm around Shen Wei's shoulder to pull him close. With Zhao Yunlan's body pressed against his side, Shen Wei felt him trembling as he hadn't been before.

"Zhao Yunlan. Are you cold?"

"Um. Yeah, a bit but it's fine. I'm just—" Zhao Yunlan lifted his face, and his eyes were wet again. "I'm a little scared?"

Shen Wei's heart dropped. He wanted to return the embrace, and bundle Zhao Yunlan up so he wouldn't be cold anymore, and wanted to kiss the tremors out of Zhao Yunlan's lips. But whatever he did, if it was the wrong thing—if it made it worse, that would be more than he could take.

Zhao Yunlan dashed an angry hand across his face. "It's just—I would dream things were like this? That we were together and you were—you were there. And then I'd wake up and you weren't and…"

Relief at the explanation clashed with the deep-seated horror that this was Shen Wei's fault, that he should never have let Zhao Yunlan suffer like this—and Shen Wei let relief win. Reached out and swept Zhao Yunlan into a crushing embrace, and was met with a surprised wheeze. "I'm here," Shen Wei promised, feeling desperate to reassure. He knew what it was like to wake from a dream that had offered a glimpse of something he could never have again. "You're here."

"Yeah?" Zhao Yunlan looked up at him, and wriggled an arm free to place a hand very deliberately on his cheek.

"Yes," Shen Wei confirmed, with the gravity that enormous statement merited. Zhao Yunlan was here, in his arms. Zhao Yunlan was touching him, and Zhao Yunlan was breaking into a slow smile that made his eyes glitter in the dim light. "And you are cold because you're wearing nothing but a robe. And your hair is wet." It was upsetting to realize the state he had left Zhao Yunlan in. "Go sit down and dry your hair. I'll get some warm clothes."

Zhao Yunlan laughed. The happiness in that sound dissolved the sharp edges of Shen Wei's distress. "What?" he asked.

"My dreams are never this practical."

Shen Wei huffed with amusement. "Then I suspect you must spend a lot of time cold in your dreams."

"Well," Zhao Yunlan said. "Naked, usually. But definitely not cold."

"Zhao Yunlan…" Shen Wei said, in a tone that never made Zhao Yunlan show any contrition at all.

Zhao Yunlan's grin grew broader.

"Go. Sit." Shen Wei released him, though they both took the first step apart rather reluctantly. Then he watched critically as Zhao Yunlan made a show of pouting before settling himself on the stool and accepting the hairdryer Shen Wei plugged in for him. There was no sign of unsteadiness, just the same kind of heavy exhaustion Shen Wei had seen before, after a case ran long. What had happened—it had definitely happened. Was still happening, or Shen Wei could have erased the mottled bruises in Zhao Yunlan's skin—could have made it so that there were no physical reminders for either of them. But what energy he had he needed to conserve for—for the future.

A future that Shen Wei had thought he knew. But has he found himself barely able to leave Zhao Yunlan behind in the bathroom for the time it took him to scoop up fresh clothes, he was beginning to realize he would need to reconsider.

Chapter Text

Zhao Yunlan felt exhausted and wrung out and better than he had since—well. Since before Dixing.

Being clean did wonders. No longer wanting to pull the skin off his face to stop it itching was almost better. But having had Shen Wei's hands on him—that was what had put him back together more firmly than having his broken bones knitted or his wounds bandaged.

Shen Wei—Shen Wei was still his. To touch, to hold, to kiss—and more, though really, for all that he had felt a flicker of interest at being so very naked near Shen Wei, that was something he would have to leave for a more rested, less...brittle Zhao Yunlan to follow through on.

Less nauseous. He wasn't feeling too sick, just as the headache wasn't being too painful, but it was a physical reminder that some things would take more time than others.

Time. They had time. (But how much time?)

Zhao Yunlan hadn't thought that—Well. That didn't matter. What did was that Shen Wei was coming back with clothes for him any minute now, and Zhao Yunlan had forgotten to move the hairdryer around. Either it had been too long since he used any kind of technology, or he was still just that tired, despite sleeping for so long earlier. As a result, his hair was now falling in soft drifts over one ear and down his neck, and then sticking damply to the other side of his skull. He made a hurried attempt at getting the last of the wetness out, ruffling his hair to let the hot air circulate through it, and when Shen Wei reappeared he had managed to at least make it less obvious that he'd gotten so badly distracted.

And then, after he'd been dressed in soft, fresh sweats and Shen Wei had insisted on tucking him back into bed, there wasn't anything more for Zhao Yunlan to busy himself with. He asked for some tea, and tried to figure out where to start while Shen Wei was occupied in the kitchen.

He was no closer to any helpful insights when Shen Wei came back. Accepting the steaming mug, he glanced up at Shen Wei. He'd have to start somewhere. Zhao Yunlan pulled his legs up under the covers and gestured for Shen Wei to sit. Waited until Shen Wei's weight had settled, took a sip, and said, "So, you know how we're fine now, and you don't need to get stabbed?"

It was maybe not the cleverest way to put it. Shen Wei tensed, enough that Zhao Yunlan could read it in his face. "Yes?"

"Okay, good. Because I really don't want you to freak out—I want to sit here and drink my tea. Is that—do you think we can do that?"

Shen Wei's alarm ratcheted up another few degrees. "Of course, Zhao Yunlan. But—why are you asking? What is happening, should I—"

"What happened when you woke up at the SID? What you were saying. You weren't talking to me, were you?" Zhao Yunlan had thought so, at first. That the heartrending no had been his fault, had been aimed at him. But their conversation in the kitchen had made it pretty clear that Shen Wei hadn't been trying to get away from Zhao Yunlan. If anything, he had been trying to get away from himself.

"Oh," Shen Wei said, and he looked like he wanted a cup of tea to occupy his hands, too. "That was…"

That was something that was making Shen Wei's gaze dart to the side, which in turn was making Zhao Yunlan's chest grow tight. If Shen Wei said nothing, Zhao Yunlan might have to ask Shen Wei to fetch him that knife again.

"Zhao Yunlan," Shen Wei said, a pleading intensity in his voice. "Are you sure you want to talk about this now? If you would rather sleep first…"

"Yes. We need to, Shen Wei—I need to know. There's a lot I need to know." He sounded as tired as he felt, saying that, but at least the apprehension at what he saw in Shen Wei's eyes wasn't making his hands shake. Yet.

Shen Wei looked down, and then up at Zhao Yunlan, his face set in an expression that wouldn't have looked out of place under the Envoy's mask, but his eyes were so vulnerable it hurt. "It was Ye Zun," he said.

Zhao Yunlan didn't know if he was going to drop his mug or break it from the force with which he clutched at it, as he fought back well-deserved hysteria. Of course it was Ye Zun. He made a choked sound and Shen Wei quickly lifted the cup away, reaching over to place it safely in the windowsill behind the bed frame. "Zhao Yunlan, are you—"

"Ye Zun?"

Shen Wei flinched. Zhao Yunlan hadn't intended that to come out so—sharp.

"Yes." Shen Wei must have realized that wasn't exactly enough information just from the look on Zhao Yunlan's face. "He has recently come into a power that allows him to communicate with me."

Well. That explained how Shen Wei had known about the chain. Ye Zun had bragged about it to Zhao Yunlan—and then he must have done the same to Shen Wei. It took a moment to get over a spike in nausea at that. One hand pressed to his stomach over the covers, he tried to move on before Shen Wei could look any more worried. "Communicate? Like a phone call?"

Shen Wei made an incredibly disapproving face. "Yes. Like those unwanted ones."

So they were dealing with Ye Zun spam calls. Great. "Okay. Can you...block his number?"

The disapproval wavered into uncertainty. "He can't reach into my mind when I am alert to the possibility."

"But when you're not alert…"

"Then—yes. He was there when I was waking from...when I was waking."

"Okay," Zhao Yunlan said again, and then shook his head and looked at Shen Wei. "I mean—no. It isn't. That must be—that must be awful for you."

"Even when he communicates, he can't do any harm."

Zhao Yunlan had absolutely no reason to let Shen Wei get away with that kind of dissembling. "You mean he can't do any physical damage."

Shen Wei's eyes widened, and Zhao Yunlan saw the devastation hit—realization that Zhao Yunlan was speaking from experience. It sent Zhao Yunlan's mind scrambling for anything that could steer this away from talking about—or apologizing for—ways in which Ye Zun could inflict pain.

Unfortunately what he landed on was—shit. Zhao Yunlan flicked his eyes down to the covers, and swept his hand over them. "Uh. So. Do you think that power is limited to...I don't know. People he's related to, or…?"

"Oh." There was more horror in Shen Wei's voice when he made that connection than there had been when he talked about his own experience. "No. No, it seems likely that he could...that it would be possible to…"

Get to anyone he wanted. Not fine, that, not really, but at least now it wouldn't be a surprise? Zhao Yunlan winced and looked up at Shen Wei. "Right. So. How do you, uh. Hang up? If he should call?" There was going to be an urgent text sent to everyone in the SID as soon as this conversation was over.

Shen Wei made a quizzical face, and a kind of swimming gesture. "Push him away?"

That was going to be interesting to put in the text. "Well. Let's hope he'll be too busy fighting the Regent and the rest of the other assholes down there to make prank calls." And Zhao Yunlan hoped it was the Regent bearing the brunt of the blame, and that Ye Zun wasn't currently taking his frustration out on all of Dixing.

"I'm sorry..." Shen Wei started to say, and Zhao Yunlan held a hand up to silence him.

"Not your fault. Okay. So you woke up and the first thing you know Ye Zun is talking to you—" And Zhao Yunlan had a good enough idea of what sort of things Ye Zun might have been saying to shudder, "And you panic."

"I—I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"No, I get it. Trust me. It's okay." And because Zhao Yunlan could, he reached out and caught Shen Wei's hand. To remind himself that it really was okay, that this was something they could deal with together.

"No, Zhao Yunlan. You needed me. And—and I left. And—"

"And I came with you, and you took me home." Zhao Yunlan rubbed circles onto the back of Shen Wei's hand with his thumb."It's okay, baby. It's fine."

Shen Wei looked absolutely miserable, and Zhao Yunlan couldn't blame him for that either. Ye Zun was pretty good at making everyone else as miserable as he was. Zhao Yunlan was about to say something about that, and Shen Wei was about to add some other apology, and then it hit him. "Shen Wei," he said, not at all as casually as he wanted to, given that he'd just experienced another tired burst of adrenaline. "Ye Zun—he can just dial in, right. He can't do the—whatever thing you did to go to Dixing?"

"No!" Shen Wei said, and Zhao Yunlan and his pounding heart were both really grateful for that. "No, of course not. That was—that is a power he does not possess."

Neither of them said yet.

"Teleportation?" Zhao Yunlan guessed. "And he doesn't have the same range you do?"

Shen Wei shook his head, guiltily. Again. Still. "No. Dixing is closed—for him, it's Haixing that is closed. And there has never been anyone with the gift of transport who could move directly from Dixing to Haixing."

Which didn't explain anything, but Shen Wei clearly had to build up to it. Zhao Yunlan squeezed his hand encouragingly, settling into the bed to prove they didn't have to act like they expected Ye Zun to show up any second. "This power—it allowed me to exchange places with one person. One Dixingren—and Zhao Yunlan, we tried to see if there was any way to make it work with a Haixingren, but...the energies, it doesn't—if it had, if I could have made it work—"

Because naturally Shen Wei's first choice would have been to take Zhao Yunlan's place in Ye Zun's cell. "I'm glad it didn't," blurted Zhao Yunlan. He had gone all shaky and soft, warmed by waves of happiness and shame both.

Shen Wei stared at him, and Zhao Yunlan shoved the covers aside so he could get closer—it was a bit of an awkward scramble, and Shen Wei leaned forward to support him and then Zhao Yunlan was kneeling unsteadily on the bed with Shen Wei's hands bracketing his waist and his own hands stroking Shen Wei's face, touching his shoulders, fingers curling at his nape. Feeling him there, whole, safe. "I'm sorry," he smiled quickly, before he had to press trembling lips together.

"No! Zhao Yunlan, what—"

"I'm sorry I'm so selfish but—I'm glad you didn't. If you had—if you'd been left there and I was up here—" Like Shen Wei had been. Like Shen Wei had been after he had seen Zhao Yunlan, touched Zhao Yunlan, almost, almost gotten him out. That Shen Wei had recovered from that—that Shen Wei had come back, ready to do whatever it took to get Zhao Yunlan free—"I couldn't have. Xiao Wei. Gorgeous, beautiful—you are so brave, you are so magnificent, I love you so much and I—"

"How?" Shen Wei said hoarsely. "How can you, now?"

Zhao Yunlan heard Shen Wei's question, heard the misery there, but he was half-laughing, half-sobbing, and couldn't recover from the interruption other than to grip Shen Wei by his shirt front—still damp from bathing Zhao Yunlan—and tug him into a controlled collapse of a hug. Mostly controlled. Even with Shen Wei catching himself, Zhao Yunlan holding on to him and pulling him along strained the healing injuries. He ignored the warning pangs of pain, because Shen Wei had an arm over his torso and a leg tangled in his and Shen Wei's face was right there on the pillow next to his, so close that he had to squint a bit to focus. "Shen Wei. Did you—did you ask how I can love you?"

"Zhao Yunlan…" Shen Wei was not denying that he had asked the question.

"Because I'll tell you, as many times as you want: because I do. Because I have, for longer than I knew, and because you saving my life isn't going to make me love you less. Because you—you waited ten thousand years for me. How could you even think I'd settle for less together?"

"Yunlan…" Shen Wei's eyes were shining—unshed tears like the starlight of the nowhere space where Zhao Yunlan had found Shen Wei waiting. His lips were twitching as if Shen Wei didn't know whether to laugh or cry either, and maybe that was the confusion cutting such a deep furrow in his face.

"Ah, fine, I know—ten thousand years is a bit much to ask for, maybe. But ten thousand days. No, wait, that's not enough, not by far—"

"It's not," Shen Wei agreed. He looked at Zhao Yunlan, face still scrunched up with emotions, but staring as if he could lock Zhao Yunlan into infinity with his gaze.

Zhao Yunlan breathed a laugh, and flopped a sore arm over so he could grab Shen Wei's shoulder, urging him near. "Then we agree," he said. "Good."

The way Shen Wei touched him back was good, too. Not squeezing him so hard anything hurt too much, but holding him tight. Shifting closer, until Shen Wei could kiss his forehead. Zhao Yunlan's eyes fluttered shut at the soft press of lips against his skin, the tenderness in the gesture undoing a few more knots in his heart. And with Shen Wei's fingers combing through the ridiculous fluffy mess he'd made of his hair, it was easy to feel the same bone-deep comfort that had made him nearly fall asleep in the bath.

The bed was soft, and warm, and with Shen Wei's weight against him he was sinking into the mattress—sinking into a heavy-lidded doze. Which felt wonderful, and relaxing, and—no. Wait. He struggled to open his eyes, and saw two blurry faces. Or no. It was Shen Wei's face, so gorgeous and so entirely unlike Ye Zun's, just kind of overlaid on itself. "No, wait."

"Don't worry, Zhao Yunlan," Shen Wei said, voice as soft as his touch. "Sleep. I'll keep watch. I won't leave, I promise."

Zhao Yunlan smiled, exhaled a shaky sigh. That did sound very good. "Ngh," he said. Then, trying harder to move his lips. "Phone. SID. Gotta let them know about…" He grimaced. The news that Ye Zun was essentially free to call up anyone in Haixing for a chat was not the worst thing Zhao Yunlan could have learned, but it was casting a rather long shadow over this whole cuddly reunion thing.

The frown was back in Shen Wei's face. Zhao Yunlan didn't like that, and he had to voice another groan of complaint when Shen Wei got up, but it was the only way to get the phone. It unlocked with his usual code. Five seconds later he stopped and blinked at it, because—how had Wang Zheng known that? She even had the important apps where he expected to find them, so it wasn't too hard to fumble up the SID group chat and compose a message warning them about Ye Zun's power. The characters had started to ooze across the screen by the time he hit send, and then Shen Wei took the phone away before it could get too heavy to hold.

"You are staying," Zhao Yunlan said.

"Yes. I promise." Shen Wei rolled him off the covers and pulled them over him instead.

"And…" Hadn't there been another thing? There must have been. Zhao Yunlan had a gnawing sense that he had forgotten something—that he had missed something important. But he was so tired, and the bed dipped under Shen Wei's weight, and then there was a hand on his head.

"Sleep, Zhao Yunlan. You need to restore your energy."

Energy. Yes. Something about—energy. The last thing Zhao Yunlan felt before he surrendered to sleep was a chill down his spine.

Shen Wei watched Zhao Yunlan sleep. His shirt dried, and when the sun set, he pulled some of the apartment's curtains open. Zhao Yunlan's eyes were still sensitive from the light deprivation in Dixing, but if he woke with the curtains drawn and the lights off, it would be too dark for him to see. Like this, streetlight spilled through the thin gauze curtains and blinds, leaving the entire apartment a vague monochrome outline of itself. There was no wind, but cold air crept through the window left open for Da Qing. Shen Wei shivered, and made sure the covers were tucked close around Zhao Yunlan. He was considering getting up to shut the window without locking it, when a shadow fell across the floor.

A round ball of shadow that elongated into a man, and then Da Qing was walking quietly through the room. "Lao Zhao's been up?" He plopped himself down on the edge of the bed, staring at Zhao Yunlan.

"He had some congee, and a bath," Shen Wei confirmed what Da Qing would already have smelled.

Da Qing glanced up at Shen Wei in warm approval, before resuming his scrutiny of Zhao Yunlan. "Good."

"Would you like something to eat?"

Da Qing perked up. Sniffed. Opened his mouth and then closed it again. "Uh. Wang-jie and Sang-ge are making dinner. With fish." It was a very delicate way of pointing out that Shen Wei's congee was insufficient for a cat of Da Qing's refined tastes.

"I see. It wouldn't do to disappoint them by showing up full, then." Shen Wei knew Sang Zan had picked up the habit of preparing more fish than he and Wang Zheng could possibly eat. It made it easier for Da Qing to get through his grief for Lao Li when he didn't have to do so deprived of his favorite food.

"Yeah," Da Qing nodded, but seemed distracted. He twitched and went still, like a cat spotting prey. "We got his text."

"And you have questions?" Shen Wei steeled himself for worry, accusation—that he hadn't warned the SID himself, that they were in danger he hadn't even considered.

Da Qing gave him a nonplussed look. "Well. Do you have any better advice than 'push'?"

A stitch of annoyance. Why did everyone question the thing Shen Wei had been doing for days on end now to keep Ye Zun at bay? You pushed. But of course, none of the others should have had to deal with it in the first place. "No. I'm sorry."

"We did all figure this was a possibility, you know," Da Qing said mildly.

"You...did?"

"Yeah. But Ye Zun—he doesn't care about any of us," Da Qing said. "The only time he has, it was because he was trying to ruin things for you. And now…" Da Qing leaned over and very carefully ruffled Zhao Yunlan's hair. Zhao Yunlan didn't stir. Da Qing must not have expected him to, because he was smiling faintly—the smile of someone who had seen all imaginable versions of Zhao Yunlan fast asleep.

"You're not worried?" Shen Wei asked. He didn't know if he wanted the SID to be more afraid, to heighten their caution, or to be proud of them in Zhao Yunlan's stead.

"We're making sure not to sleep alone tonight," Da Qing shrugged. "But worried…you'll take care of Lao Zhao, right?"

"Yes," Shen Wei said promptly. "Of course. I promised." Not just Zhao Yunlan, but Da Qing, too. "For—for as long as I can."

Da Qing gave Shen Wei an unblinking stare. "That had better be another ten thousand years, Hei Pao Shi," he said slowly, pricking Shen Wei's heart with guilt made more immediate and intense by how closely his words echoed those Zhao Yunlan had said so recently.

"I—I will do my best," Shen Wei said. That, at least, was true.

Da Qing hummed in noncommittal answer, then shook himself and stood. "Well. It's fish time for me!"

"Have a good evening." The words came automatically, but felt too trite—too out of place with Zhao Yunlan right there between them.

Da Qing hopped down onto the floor, a four-pawed void in the shadows of the apartment. "Come to the SID tomorrow," he said as he walked to the window. "We'll all be there bright and early."

"If Zhao Yunlan is well enough."

Da Qing paused. "You've fixed him up good," he said. Then he hopped out and was gone, before Shen Wei could say anything at all.

Da Qing's words were making Shen Wei hot with shame at how wrong that implicit forgiveness was. Zhao Yunlan wasn't even fully healed—was still in pain—and yet both times Da Qing had spoken to Shen Wei, he had been thankful rather than angry. And part of the shame was at how good that felt—that there were those he counted as friends who did not hold his failures against him, no matter that they were well within their rights to.

Shen Wei closed the window against the chill, and went to sit on the spot Da Qing had vacated on the bed. Close enough to reach out and touch Zhao Yunlan's face, while sitting between him and anyone who might enter through the door. He listened to Zhao Yunlan's breathing, soft and even and familiar—a marvel and a thread of joy through everything else he felt. To have Zhao Yunlan near, sleeping, healing—Shen Wei still had so many fears, but his worst one had not come to pass.

As the hour grew late, silence descended on the apartment. There was nobody else moving around in the building, and very little traffic in the street outside. And in that absence of other sounds, Shen Wei could hear the whispers that had been fluttering at the edge of his consciousness for hours. He refused to listen, but that didn't matter—he could feel the malevolent pressure of them like a stormfront on the horizon. And he pushed back, refusing to let it in, but no matter what he did Ye Zun was always right there. Waiting.

If only Shen Wei were stronger, then maybe he—

Something had changed. Shen Wei sat up straight, eyes on Zhao Yunlan. There was a hitch in those even breaths.

"Zhao Yunlan?" Shen Wei leaned over, watching carefully for a reaction. Zhao Yunlan didn't answer, but his face was losing the peacefulness of sleep for a sharp tension.

Zhao Yunlan's breaths were coming quicker, and he stirred under the covers.

Was Ye Zun causing this? Shen Wei wanted to reach out—to pick up, as Zhao Yunlan would have said—and make Ye Zun stop. But he didn't dare—not now, not with his powers so drained, and Zhao Yunlan right there.

With a faint moan, Zhao Yunlan twisted onto his side in the bed. Shen Wei slid off the mattress, knelt on the floor so that he could grip Zhao Yunlan's right shoulder and better see his face, which was tense and riddled with pain.

"Zhao Yunlan?" Shen Wei asked again, less quietly.

Whatever was happening, Zhao Yunlan was still sleeping through it. He didn't respond, but a few seconds later he groaned and his body contracted, knees pulling up towards his torso and his shoulders hunching down against his chest. His color had been improving as he ate and washed and rested, but now he was waxy pale. Shen Wei placed his palm against Zhao Yunlan's forehead and found it damp with sweat.

"Yunlan. Wake up," Shen Wei said, moving to shake Zhao Yunlan.

A faint complaint, and Zhao Yunlan's eyes fluttered open. "Ah?"

"Yunlan. What is wrong?"

"Hurts," Zhao Yunlan's voice was thready, and despite the darkness he was squinting when he looked at Shen Wei. "Fuck, that bad, that's—" his words dissolved into a gasp.

"What is happening? Zhao Yunlan?"

Zhao Yunlan hissed between his teeth. "Uh. I think—if you can find some of my meds, this is—"

An attack of the gastric pain Zhao Yunlan had suffered from regularly before Shen Wei started making him eat better, and at random intervals since. Usually sleeping it off helped, but this had already woken Zhao Yunlan from his sleep, and now he was in such pain that Shen Wei winced to see him clench his jaw and try to curl around his belly. It made sense that his diet would have been...poor. And he'd had all of one solid meal now, and even that Shen Wei had noticed him struggling with.

As his body gave a shudder, Zhao Yunlan cut off a low whine to say, "It's okay, it's just—" and then the pain must have stolen his breath again.

Pain. Zhao Yunlan was in pain. Again, right in front of Shen Wei, and he couldn't—couldn't—let it continue. He placed a hand over the ones Zhao Yunlan had clutched over his belly, and closed his eyes. Let tendrils of power find their way to a conflagration of energies and—there. Zhao Yunlan wasn't just in pain, he was torn open on the inside. Biting down against the urge to recoil, Shen Wei focused. Tensed his core, pulled all the force he could muster into the palm of his hand while he kept all of that other energy from jostling, from spilling over. From destroying him as he sent his own power radiating into Zhao Yunlan with the single-minded goal of heal.

Shen Wei focused past the first dizziness and the wave of agony and weakness that followed. Focused past the taste of blood flooding his mouth, and the lingering glow of the streetlights outside erased by darkness.

The hardest part was to focus past Zhao Yunlan's voice rising in pain, but that was what Shen Wei was doing. Taking that pain away. He was going to mend this—this one thing. After all the ways in which Zhao Yunlan had been hurt, Shen Wei would earn some of that trust and forgiveness back by letting Zhao Yunlan heal. He just had to give a little more, and then—

Oh. No. He had nothing left.

Chapter Text

Zhao Yunlan woke up in pain. Again. But this time Shen Wei was there, cool hands and worried voice to lean into and take solace in, and he wasn't in the orange dimness of a Dixing cell, but home. There was the muted glow of electric lights coming from the street outside, and he was warm and safe. He also hurt like he was dying, but he had survived enough bouts of this particular agony to know that he wasn't. It was just that the pain slamming through him from the small of his back through his ribcage while his heart felt caught in an ever-tightening vise really made passing out seem like a nice option, all things considered.

It was with some difficulty he managed to communicate to Shen Wei that he would probably be fine even if he didn't seem that way, and then he couldn't really communicate at all for a bit, no matter how hard he tried. Not coherently at least. He did attempt to reassure Shen Wei, but that would have worked better if his teeth weren't clamped firmly shut over the keening that wanted to shove its way out of his throat.

Then Shen Wei's hands were on his, and that felt good. Steady palms against his tremors, and somehow Shen Wei's presence rolled through him like warm, soothing waves. Like just by being there, Shen Wei calmed the pain enough to let Zhao Yunlan catch his breath, and know for sure that whatever was happening was something he could get through. Or was maybe mostly through already, because he was starting to feel limp and shaky, which meant he was no longer entirely locked up in agony.

Glad things were looking up, Zhao Yunlan forced his eyes open.

Everything immediately got a whole lot worse.

Shen Wei was kneeling by the bed, vibrating with a frantic tension that was the only thing keeping him upright. His eyes were screwed shut in a way Zhao Yunlan recognized even before he focused on the place where Shen Wei was touching him and saw the dark energy swirling between them—a maelstrom of writhing tendrils shot through with white like a miniature thunderstorm. "Shen Wei!"

Instead of answering, Shen Wei coughed up an entire mouthful of blood, and Zhao Yunlan panicked. He tried to yank Shen Wei's hands off him, but he might as well have been trying to move a statue of solid lead. Shen Wei didn't budge, and the energy didn't stop flowing, and the pain kept draining out of Zhao Yunlan. "Shen Wei, stop! Stop, don't do this, Shen Wei, you can't!"

Shen Wei didn't react. Didn't show any sign of having heard Zhao Yunlan.

Grabbing Shen Wei by the shoulders did about as much good as shoving at his arm—at least until Shen Wei went entirely limp, his pale face slackening from that terrible single-minded focus to unconsciousness. Zhao Yunlan held on to him with every bit of terrified strength his sore arms could muster, and instead of sliding onto the floor Shen Wei folded forward onto the bed and Zhao Yunlan.

"Shen Wei?" Voice wavering with shock, Zhao Yunlan shifted Shen Wei over so that he wouldn't have his face buried in the covers. The sheets were stained with blood, and it smeared across Shen Wei's face. Pale and mussed and bloody, the only thing Zhao Yunlan could see was Shen Wei as he had found him in Dixing before they all fought Ye Zun. When he had spoken of his wounds with a bloody smile, when he had told Zhao Yunlan You'll understand. And Zhao Yunlan hadn't, not until Ye Zun told him—and even then, he'd hoped it was another lie.

Of course it hadn't been. Not when the truth hurt so much more. That Shen Wei was like this because of him, because of the energy they had exchanged through the Sundial, and Zhao Yunlan had known something was wrong but not this wrong, not—not Shen Wei coughing up blood and falling over and flopping his dead weight across Zhao Yunlan's legs wrong. Though not dead—right? He was still breathing, right?

Zhao Yunlan's hand found Shen Wei's neck, and even before he felt the pulse—was it weak? Thready? Zhao Yunlan couldn't tell because all of him had gone weak and thready—he saw Shen Wei's eyelashes moving, as if he was blinking in a dream. Or waking up from a dream. "Shen Wei. Shen Wei, please, come on?" Zhao Yunlan shook him a bit, gently. Then not so gently, because there was nothing gentle about his desperation. "Shen Wei!"

"Hello, Xiao Yunlan."

Zhao Yunlan choked on a startled cry, going fear-cold and panicky as he twitched his hands away from Shen Wei, who flopped forward. How—that was Shen Wei he was looking at, it was Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan knew it. But it had been Ye Zun speaking. Shen Wei would never—that wasn't Shen Wei.

"Did you miss me?"

And oh, okay, okay. The voice wasn't coming from Shen Wei, which was a relief.

Ye Zun was in his brain, which was. Less of a relief. "Fuck off," Zhao Yunlan said, with every bit of emphasis he could muster through a shudder of pure horror. The absence of pain in response to his words took a while to process. He'd tensed, so hard his arm and shoulder both ached sharply with it, and when he unfroze it was with his throat locked so tight he had to fight for each breath.

It was—not okay, not nearly okay, but Zhao Yunlan tried to at least hold on to the fact that Ye Zun couldn't...reach him. That Ye Zun was in Dixing, and he was here. That this was true, no matter how skittish Ye Zun's long silence was making him. And there was absolutely nothing stopping him from scooping Shen Wei back up into something a little more comfortable than his current position of passed out face-down on the covers.

Nothing except nerves jangling in alarm—but this was Shen Wei he was looking at. Shen Wei. Just because Ye Zun had made Zhao Yunlan jump thinking somehow the two of them had traded places again—but that wasn't possible. They'd gone over that, Shen Wei had told him—unless Shen Wei had been wrong.

Zhao Yunlan felt cold, but there was the hot sting of shame in his cheeks at his own hesitation. He slid an arm under Shen Wei's chest and rested the other on the back of his head. Paused for a hard-won deep breath, and—

"Don't!"

A completely unnecessary spike of adrenaline made Zhao Yunlan gasp. That had sounded just like—but it wasn't Shen Wei.

Ye Zun laughed. The sound didn't come from anywhere. Didn't come from Shen Wei, absolutely didn't, but Zhao Yunlan had jerked back from him again.

"That's right. Stay away from gege, Xiao Yunlan. You know he'll hurt you."

The edges of Zhao Yunlan's vision fuzzed with fury. "I told you to get out, you fucking piece of shit."

"Or else?" Ye Zun said with playful smugness.

Zhao Yunlan's fists clenched. Shen Wei, his Shen Wei, was terrifyingly unconscious and unattended while Zhao Yunlan was letting Ye Zun jerk him around like he was still in chains. Right here, in his own home—his own mind. He wanted to scream. He wasn't supposed to have to have Ye Zun to deal with anymore. Not like this, not alone, again—No. His heart might be somewhere under his Adam's apple, but he swallowed. He wasn't alone.

"Hey, Shen Wei?" Zhao Yunlan carefully wrapped his arms around his lover.

"No!"

Zhao Yunlan did not let go this time. He could see Shen Wei's face now, and his heart clenched at how bad his color was under the bright smear of blood across his skin. His eyes were closed, his body unresponsive. He was breathing, Zhao Yunlan could see it, and that alone did ease a little of the welter of emotions that had him so overwhelmed. Because Shen Wei wasn't responding, and Ye Zun was still talking.

"All that damage, and he didn't even heal you properly? You should be careful, Xiao Yunlan. I think Shen Wei might like his pet human better broken."

Squeezing his eyes shut did absolutely nothing to block Ye Zun out. On the contrary—in the darkness of his mind, Zhao Yunlan could feel a gloating presence. Right there, waiting—

"Shen Wei, wake up?" Zhao Yunlan's voice sounded plaintive to his own ears. And to Ye Zun's...whatever Ye Zun's incorporeal but far too real presence had instead of ears, because there was a mocking laugh.

"He won't."

"Shut up." Zhao Yunlan curled himself around Shen Wei, as if Ye Zun's words were a threat he could fend off. "Come on, Shen Wei." He was acutely aware that it wasn't safe to let Ye Zun see what he wanted to protect, but that didn't matter. Zhao Yunlan's love for Shen Wei had never been anything he could hide.

"Your precious Hei Pao Shi is too afraid." Ye Zun's hate for his brother was like an oily film clinging to his words.

A memory of asking why came to Zhao Yunlan, unbidden. Why do you hate him so much? Nothing Ye Zun had said in answer had made much sense—going on and on about Shen Wei being a traitor to Dixing, and how he had left them and abandoned him—but the ways Ye Zun had hurt him then...Zhao Yunlan had filed that information away for later. Holding the question in store as something he could use to provoke Ye Zun into losing control. Into continuing past the point where he usually stopped hurting and started healing—

Because that had been his only choice. Maybe if Ye Zun had wanted something of him, Zhao Yunlan could have had the option of giving in. Had sometimes wished that there had been something—something he could yield on, something he could give up to make Ye Zun stop, and hated himself for it. But there hadn't been. He'd never had anything he could do. Nothing at all.

Nothing then.

Now—

"That's right. I'm here now, so he's taking the coward's way out. Leaving you to me, again."

"No." Zhao Yunlan's arms tightened around Shen Wei, sore from the awkward position but feeling a surge of defiant hope. Push, Shen Wei had said. Zhao Yunlan had forgotten, because the moment he'd heard Ye Zun's voice he had gone back to where he could do nothing but endure.

"No. You're not here." Zhao Yunlan closed his eyes and tried to find a way to push Ye Zun all the way back to Dixing. This time, Zhao Yunlan was prepared to find Ye Zun waiting for him. Prepared to feel something not himself in his own mind, something with a weight and a presence—right there, Ye Zun was right there.

"I am. I'm right here, Xiao Yunlan."

Zhao Yunlan's eyes flew open and he tugged at Shen Wei—needing to feel him, needing Shen Wei to be the only thing he felt, needing Shen Wei to be awake, needing Shen Wei. He was sliding off the bed, kneeling next to Shen Wei, shifting him into an embrace. His unconscious body slumped heavily against Zhao Yunlan, who buried his face in Shen Wei's hair and wrapped his arms around Shen Wei's shoulders, trying to stop shaking.

"Still no Shen Wei to save you, Xiao Yunlan? I don't know what you were expecting." Ye Zun's voice coming from everywhere and nowhere at once scraped at Zhao Yunlan's raw nerves. He couldn't shut it out, couldn't distance himself from that smug malice. He wasn't getting enough air, and Shen Wei wasn't moving.

"Hei Pao Shi might have been strong enough to challenge me, once. But he gave it up. For you." Cruel, familiar disdain echoed around a dark Dixing cell in his head. This, Zhao Yunlan had heard before. It hurt more now when he couldn't hope it was a lie, a wedge of despair driving between his ribs. Shen Wei's hair smelled of citrus shampoo.

"If he hadn't, maybe he wouldn't have sacrificed you."

"He didn't!" Zhao Yunlan's head snapped up, and he blinked, taken aback by the night stillness of the tidy apartment. No Ye Zun. Because Zhao Yunlan was home, and Ye Zun was in Dixing.

Laughter rang out. "Gege left you," Ye Zun said, exhilarated. "Twice!"

"You're such a fucking liar." Zhao Yunlan had only barely gotten Shen Wei to go ahead with the unconscious Xiao Guo. And Shen Wei's face as the portal fell apart between them, before Zhao Yunlan could follow...He would rather take a bullet than see that expression ever again.

"What? Oh...you mean because he came back for you? But he wasn't strong enough to fight for you. He had to cheat. Only... it wasn't cheating, was it? It was real. You know it was real—you know the pretty chains I made you wouldn't have yielded, otherwise."

Zhao Yunlan's stomach knotted itself so hard bile rose in the back of his throat. He didn't want to think about this.

"Ah." A sickly sweet sound of sympathy. "You thought he would come for you. But instead I did. Didn't I? Wasn't it just like with me?"

Zhao Yunlan absolutely couldn't throw up in Shen Wei's hair. He swallowed convulsively, trying to—not.

"And that's why you're here, for now, Xiao Yunlan. Not because Shen Wei protected you. But because we're the same."

Fury flared in Zhao Yunlan, hot and bright and beautiful. "You are not."

If a pause could be amused, this one was. "True. I am far more powerful than Hei Pao Shi. But other than that? We are the same."

In his arms, Shen Wei was defenseless and bloody after giving more than he could spare to heal Zhao Yunlan's small pain. Shen Wei, who had nearly been consumed by his own guilt about what had happened. Who had washed him and fed him and taken such infinite care of him and Ye Zun dared?

"You," Zhao Yunlan said, feeling his anger swelling with each moment Ye Zun's insult went unanswered, "are nothing like Shen Wei." And he took all the rage he felt, and the frantic need to keep Shen Wei safe, to keep Shen Wei from ever hearing any of the grotesque lies his brother told, and he pushed.

It was like pressing the power button on a computer screen. That quickly, the parts of his mind that had been receiving Ye Zun's presence went blank. There was no fading, no lingering scream. Just. Quiet.

Zhao Yunlan held his breath. Or maybe he couldn't breathe. He waited, tense and suspicious, knowing Ye Zun couldn't be trusted. Couldn't be, ever. And right now he could be biding his time, lurking quietly somewhere Zhao Yunlan couldn't feel him, just—waiting. Zhao Yunlan shuddered, and wound himself more tightly around Shen Wei. He could feel his own heart beating too fast. His lungs were working again, which was good. But his own body was so noisy that he could hardly make out Shen Wei's even breaths, which was bad. They were so soft. Like in sleep.

"Shen Wei?" Maybe this time he would wake up. Maybe this time—

A flicker at the corner of his own awareness answered him—something that felt like the whisper of footsteps in a stone hallway, like being blinded as the door to his cell was swung open without the use of keys. "No," he snarled. Let the denial explode out of him, pushing the presence away. Ye Zun was not getting into his head again.

Ye Zun really wanted to get into his head again, though. It made it impossible to relax. It made him feel like a lightbulb beset by a poisonous, murderous moth—something fluttering at the edge of his mind, bouncing off of it only to return again and again.

Zhao Yunlan propped himself up against the bed and wrestled Shen Wei's boneless body into a slightly more comfortable position. He wished he could lift Shen Wei into bed and tuck him in, but neither of them were in good enough shape for that. Zhao Yunlan felt both shivery and sweaty. He rested his cheek on the top of Shen Wei's head, trying to keep his breathing deep and even. "Shen Wei, baby?" he murmured. "Do you think you could wake up? I'm—" The thought that Ye Zun might hear cut him off. He could admit his fear to Shen Wei, but not to Ye Zun. Never that.

"And you shouldn't listen to him either," Zhao Yunlan said instead. He remembered Shen Wei's panic on waking in the SID. That panic he had first thought was about him, and then thought he understood, when he learned about Ye Zun's ability. But having experienced it himself, he could only imagine what Ye Zun had been doing to Shen Wei. "I'm sorry." Shen Wei had been through so much, and was still hurting, and Zhao Yunlan didn't know what he could do about that. He sighed, and kissed Shen Wei's hair in belated apology for everything he hadn't been able to protect him from.

There was silence. The floor was too hard, the edge of the bed was digging into his back, and Shen Wei had been unconscious for too long, which was something Zhao Yunlan was trying to decide how to deal with. First he had to not freak out. Then...an ambulance couldn't help, but maybe if he called the SID—but if they couldn't do anything then if they went to the hospital—

Zhao Yunlan's zig-zag thoughts came to a stumbling halt.

Silence. What he was hearing was silence. His own breaths, and Shen Wei's—that was the only sound he heard. And he didn't feel anything either. Nothing trying to pry its way into his mind. Ye Zun was gone.

Or hiding so well Zhao Yunlan couldn't find him, but that didn't sound like Ye Zun. Ye Zun liked being noticed, and hated being ignored, and if there was silence, that was because Ye Zun was gone.

Probably.

Relief Zhao Yunlan wasn't sure he should be feeling rushed through him, washing away some of the lingering adrenaline, and he gave Shen Wei a squeeze. "Now I just need you to—"

Zhao Yunlan was not prepared for the upwards motion of Shen Wei's head, and so did not remove his chin from its trajectory in time. His mouth closed with an audible click of teeth and a burst of pain—sharp and coppery where he'd bitten through his lip, and throbbing where his chin was going to bruise. Shen Wei flailed weakly and gasped and Zhao Yunlan spent a few seconds trying to sound calm as he said, "Hey, hey, it's just me, it's okay—" before he realized it wasn't just him.

The silence. The silence in Zhao Yunlan's own mind because Ye Zun had gone. Had gone somewhere else. "Oh, fuck no."

Shen Wei had leveraged himself into a crouch, facing Zhao Yunlan, his eyes glazed and his mouth twisted around a growl.

Zhao Yunlan forced his voice to stay level. "That's right. Don't listen to him, don't listen to a thing he says. Come on, come back to me, baby. Focus."

"No, I—Zhao Yunlan?" Shen Wei dropped down to one knee, sounding dazed, as if the fight was going out of him.

Zhao Yunlan surged against Shen Wei, caught him and held him tight, head tucked against Zhao Yunlan's shoulder. "I'm here, love. I'm here, and Ye Zun isn't."

"Zhao Yunlan." It was a pained whisper, and Zhao Yunlan couldn't tell if Shen Wei was asking for him or talking to Ye Zun out loud. But he was awake—out of unconsciousness, and not fading further, and he hadn't tried to tear himself away.

"Yeah. I'm here. We're home, you got me home—"

"I—I'm sorry, I should—I shouldn't—" Shen Wei was shivering as badly as Zhao Yunlan had been himself, the anguished words torn out in stuttering breaths as he let himself be held.

A toxic caress against Zhao Yunlan’s mind brought a certain grim satisfaction—if Ye Zun was checking in on him, that meant he'd lost the opportunity to torment his brother. Zhao Yunlan didn't even bother snapping at Ye Zun, focusing all his attention on Shen Wei, trying to stop this avalanche of apologies and self-recrimination that must have been set off by Ye Zun. "Xiao Wei. Listen to me. It's okay, it's fine. Whatever he said—you're nothing like him, okay?"

Shen Wei convulsed in Zhao Yunlan's arms, and Zhao Yunlan heard a moan of distress. His heart constricted, and he rubbed soothing circles into Shen Wei's back through the fabric of his vest. "You're not. You're not your brother, you could never be anything like him."

Shen Wei pulled away, just enough to look at Zhao Yunlan with haunted eyes, lips an ashen, unhappy line. There was dried blood around his mouth, a flaking trace of it on his chin. "I promise," Zhao Yunlan said, and smiled to see Shen Wei's expression clear a little.

Finally looking properly awake and aware, Shen Wei's gaze was drawn to Zhao Yunlan's lips. His brow rippled into a worried frown, and he reached for Zhao Yunlan's face. "You're bleed—"

Zhao Yunlan caught Shen Wei's wrist. "Stop," he said, as gently as he could with his pulse spiking as he felt the remembered weight of Shen Wei's unresponsive body. "It's just a little nick. I'll be fine." He sucked at the bitten spot, tasting blood.

But Shen Wei was still staring, as if entranced by Zhao Yunlan's lips—and not the good kind of entranced, either. "I hurt you," he whispered.

Zhao Yunlan huffed a sound that was half sob. So they were back to this—a midnight visit from Ye Zun and of course they were back to this. "That was an accident," he said, as firmly as he could.

"I'm sorry."

There was a tremor going through Shen Wei—Zhao Yunlan could feel it in the wrist he was holding. Carefully he took Shen Wei's hand in both of his instead. "Yeah. I know. It's okay."

"Zhao Yunlan." Shen Wei's voice held both doubt and relief.

Wanting to banish that doubt, Zhao Yunlan pulled Shen Wei's hand to his lips. The moment they brushed across Shen Wei's skin there was a dark spark. It wasn't painful—more like being tickled by Da Qing's whiskers than the shock of static electricity. He jerked back, startled.

"Oh," Shen Wei said. "Oh, no, I wasn't—" And then he swayed, blinking as his gaze went unfocused.

"Shit," Zhao Yunlan said, putting a hand under his elbow. The touch seemed to steady Shen Wei. "Come on, lean back—or can you stand, can you get into bed?" It was the twinge in his own muscles when he moved to support Shen Wei that made him realize they'd both be more comfortable off the floor.

"Yes," Shen Wei said thickly. He moved slowly, gripping the corner of the nightstand to leverage himself off the floor rather than put his weight on Zhao Yunlan. That was probably just as well. He sat himself on the edge of the bed carefully, like he was in pain. Zhao Yunlan heaved himself up after him, touching his tongue to the weird tingly spot on his lip. It wasn't healed, but it was—something.

"Are you okay?" Zhao Yunlan asked, then realized what a foolish question that was. Of course he wasn't, neither one of them was. "I mean. Your—hand, what was that?

Shen Wei looked distraught. "I don't know? I think—I think something lingered, of my earlier intent." He turned anxious eyes on Zhao Yunlan.

"You mean healing."

"Yes. You were hurting, and I—"

"—you were a fucking idiot," Zhao Yunlan said, quite firmly, and Shen Wei blinked at him.

"Not now, but before! What the hell were you thinking? Huh? Look at yourself—you don't have power to spare and you decided to just burn through it instead of getting me my actual meds that actually work?" As he spoke, Zhao Yunlan squeezed Shen Wei's shoulder in gentle reassurance to take the sting out of his words.

"Oh. That. Yes—Zhao Yunlan, I am sorry." Shen Wei's voice was utterly remorseful, but when Zhao Yunlan looked up at him there was a stubborn frown between his brows that was screaming but I'd do it all again. Zhao Yunlan wanted to shake him—except for how he looked like that might make him fall apart. "I shouldn't have—it wasn't supposed to…"

"Knock you out?"

Shen Wei nodded.

"And you've realized that's bad and you won't do it again?"

Shen Wei took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for something. An argument, maybe, from the way his eyes darkened before he looked down.

"Please?" Zhao Yunlan said, running his hand down Shen Wei's arm. He didn't want to fight Shen Wei, not on top of everything else. Not even about this.

The soft plea startled Shen Wei. He opened his mouth, looking at Zhao Yunlan with such anguish that it made Zhao Yunlan brace for something terrible—then he deflated visibly. "It's not safe," he agreed. "I'm sorry, Zhao Yunlan…"

"Yeah. And this thing where it…'lingers', you said? That's not...good?"

Shen Wei started shaking his head, and stopped himself with an expression Zhao Yunlan recognized only too well as moving was a mistake, planting both palms on the bed. He looked awful. The blood still on his face didn't help.

"Wait here." Zhao Yunlan gave Shen Wei's arm one last squeeze, and stood. Not just because he didn't know how he was going to deal if Shen Wei kept apologizing, though that definitely made it easier to force his stiff body upright.

Shen Wei waited where Zhao Yunlan had left him, arms locked and braced against the mattress as if it was the only thing keeping him upright. It was disconcerting enough to be frightening, and Zhao Yunlan hurried to the bathroom. A glance in the mirror made him pause to splash cold water in his own face, rinsing his mouth and daubing at his swollen lip with a tissue before returning to Shen Wei with a warm, damp towel.

"Let's get you cleaned up, okay?"

Shen Wei seemed baffled, then touched the tip of his tongue to the corner of his mouth, grimacing. "Oh."

Zhao Yunlan sat down, and Shen Wei closed his eyes and let Zhao Yunlan wipe the dried blood off his face. Then Zhao Yunlan ran his fingers through Shen Wei's disheveled hair for good measure, getting it falling something along the lines of its usual neat part. Neither of them said anything. It made his already battered heart ache to see Shen Wei like this—pale and quiet, straining to hold himself together. As if everything Shen Wei had been forced to overcome already hadn't been enough, now this? After they had been so close to—not quite fine, but at least better. And together. Now Shen Wei was retreating into himself again.

There had to be something Zhao Yunlan could do. He left Shen Wei on the bed, and took the wet towel back to the bathroom where he dug through the clothes he had shed earlier to find the sling Zhu Hong had made him. He hissed between clenched teeth has he shrugged it on, but once he had his arm tucked inside that did lessen the strain on his shoulder. Then he went to the fridge, found his stomach meds, and shook out a double dose. Feeling the weight of Shen Wei's eyes on him he didn't even dry swallow the pills, but went all the way to the kitchen for some water.

It made him remember the first time Shen Wei had taken him home and cleaned his apartment and made him congee for breakfast without having as much as kissed, and made Zhao Yunlan realize just how much his heart wanted Shen Wei. As much as his body already had—more, even, but his heart had learned better than to hope.

Zhao Yunlan was about to share the memory with Shen Wei—but when he turned around he had his hands clenched on top of his knees and was staring at Zhao Yunlan. Staring with an expression that scared the shit out of him. "Shen Wei?"

"I—" Shen Wei swallowed, looked down. "I have to go."

"What."

The word hung between them. Zhao Yunlan felt numb. Freezing numb, the kind of numbness that kills.

Shen Wei's throat worked. He looked up. Tried to say something. Failed, and tried again, in a whisper. "It's too dangerous."

"What is?" Zhao Yunlan's voice came out flat.

"Me."

"Shen Wei. It's fine, whatever Ye Zun said—we can do this, okay? If you need to go somewhere—I'll come with you."

"No!"

At the anguish in that, in how Shen Wei wouldn't even look at him, Zhao Yunlan went to kneel between Shen Wei's legs. He put his hand on Shen Wei's cheek, and tilted his bowed head so that their eyes would meet. "Yes. I told you—ten thousand years ago I told you. I'm coming with you. I'll always come with you."

Shen Wei shook his head, and Zhao Yunlan's hand slid to the back of his neck, stroking the soft skin there with his thumb. "Tell me. Tell me what's going on, tell me everything that's going on. And then we're going to make a plan. Together. Okay?"

Chapter Text

Shen Wei had wanted to spare Zhao Yunlan this. For as long as possible. Ever since he got Zhao Yunlan back, and Zhao Yunlan didn't tell him to leave.

That still set Shen Wei reeling. Zhao Yunlan had asked him to stay. Shen Wei had thought—hadn't thought. Not this.

And now Zhao Yunlan, having just had a terrible shock and seen for himself proof of what Shen Wei's weakness could cost him—that Shen Wei couldn't protect him, not as he deserved—was kneeling in front of him outright refusing to let him leave. Which was foolish. But for all his reasons not to listen, Zhao Yunlan's gentle hand and insistent words were spreading warmth through Shen Wei's fear-chilled body. "You shouldn't…" Shen Wei started, needing to try one more time.

Zhao Yunlan's hand stilled on his nape. Became a steady grip, holding him firm. "I should. Because I love you."

That tore the air out of Shen Wei's lungs. He might have made a sound, because Zhao Yunlan's head tilted slightly with an unspoken question.

Love. The fierce, unflinching way Zhao Yunlan said the word made Shen Wei's heart lighter than it should be, given the price Zhao Yunlan could have paid for his mistake tonight. He'd had to face Ye Zun alone—Ye Zun had told him, but on that count Shen Wei didn't have to doubt his brother. As he came back to himself after their...conversation, Zhao Yunlan was far too clear on what it was like to have Ye Zun's voice in your mind.

"And whatever Ye Zun told you—" Too many truths. Too many lies. Shen Wei shook his head into Zhao Yunlan's palm, and got the sweetest smile in return. "Just ignore him. Listen to me instead. You know which one of us is right."

"You," Shen Wei allowed himself to say, just to see Zhao Yunlan's smile brighten.

"Good. Then let's do this. You tell me what's going on. Everything. And we figure it out together."

At once, Shen Wei became more aware of the constant, aching tenderness that expressed itself in an urge to protect Zhao Yunlan, whom he loved more than he had ever found the words to say. It made him wish he could want to take Zhao Yunlan and seal him away from harm, from time, from everything Shen Wei could do to hurt or disappoint him—but Shen Wei could never. Shen Wei needed Zhao Yunlan too much for that. Loved him too much for that. And with Zhao Yunlan pleading with him, Shen Wei couldn't refuse. Not even when what Zhao Yunlan asked of him was as excruciating and costly as the truth. "Zhao Yunlan," Shen Wei said, speaking his name for courage. "I have to tell you…"

There was fear in Zhao Yunlan's eyes. Shen Wei fisted his hands on his knees. "The energies in me—those that I draw my power from, and that give me life—are unbalanced. Volatile."

"Because of what happened with the Dial," Zhao Yunlan said in a tight voice. "With my energy."

"No, that wasn't why," Shen Wei shook his head, not wanting Zhao Yunlan to blame himself for something that had been entirely outside of his control. "It wasn't you."

"Right," Zhao Yunlan said, though his jaw didn't relax. "It was just when you used the Dial to fix my eyes that it happened."

"I'm sorry. I—I had not been aware that it was a possibility," Shen Wei said. "That it wouldn't simply transfer the dark energy back to a Dixingren body, but that it would...overflow."

"Fine. But if my energy's messing with you, why don't you just—let it go?"

"I can't," Shen Wei said.

"What?"

"I am of Dixing. What I can control, my powers—those are related to dark energy. Light energy is different. And now, even though it inhabits me, the best I can do is try to keep it separate for as long as possible."

"What do you mean, as long as possible?" Zhao Yunlan asked harshly.

Shen Wei didn't flinch. "You know that dark and light energy were never meant to coexist. Even my control can't maintain the balance between them forever. You have already seen some of the effects. How keeping them separate is draining me. And when I touched you there was a discharge that even you could feel, correct?"

Zhao Yunlan sighed. "Yeah. And you didn't mean for that to happen."

"No. That energy—it should have been sealed off," Shen Wei said. "But it wasn't, not any longer. And that will continue to happen. The energies in me are going to tip further into chaos, and eventually exceed my capacity to contain and separate them. They will overflow my body, in catastrophic ways."

"Shen Wei." Zhao Yunlan's voice trembled. "Your body? You're telling me…" Zhao Yunlan shook his head, unwilling—perhaps unable—to go on.

"When it happens, the damage will be significant," Shen Wei said. "And I can't predict when it might be. It would be safer for you to stay here, while I go—"

"Go?" It wasn't even a whisper. Zhao Yunlan's mouth hung open, and the look he gave Shen Wei felt like a blow.

Shen Wei had promised to stay the night. Promised to be there for Zhao Yunlan. But now—it was not even dawn, and Ye Zun had disturbed Zhao Yunlan's peace of mind, and still he was talking of leaving. Of course Zhao Yunlan hated him for this. For breaking his word, for giving Zhao Yunlan such insufficient care and protection. There was no apology sincere enough for Shen Wei to express his regrets for all the ways in which he kept failing the one he loved more than anything. He swallowed, reached for the inadequate sorry, and—

Maybe he said it? Shen Wei didn't know, because the next moment he was being pushed back into the bed, his arms full of furious Zhao Yunlan. Shen Wei wouldn't fend off an attack, though he did find it odd—Zhao Yunlan's temper was usually steadier than Shen Wei's own when it came to resorting to rough handling to express everything he felt.

"Shen Wei," Zhao Yunlan growled. "You are not going away somewhere to—to let yourself die!"

That wasn't why Shen Wei wanted to leave. He wanted to leave to make sure nothing would happen to Zhao Yunlan or anyone else when the inevitable finally happened. But Zhao Yunlan did not seem to be listening. He was pressing Shen Wei into the bed with his one mobile hand, his knees on the mattress straddling Shen Wei in a way that should have promised heat and tenderness, not this fathomless hurt.

Shen Wei swallowed. He didn't know what he could say to ease Zhao Yunlan's pain. "I have to," he tried.

Zhao Yunlan pressed down more forcefully on his shoulder, and then let Shen Wei go, sliding back on his feet. He said nothing, though he held their gaze, breathing like it hurt to fill his lungs. Shen Wei gingerly leveraged himself upright in the bed.

"Fine," Zhao Yunlan said—clearly not meaning the word as much as grasping for something he could say. "You're—you've got this situation happening. Energies. Okay."

"Yes," Shen Wei agreed. He could see that Zhao Yunlan was attempting to compose himself—rubbing a thumb over his fist as he bounced on his heels, looking anywhere but at Shen Wei for a moment before fixing him with another stare.

"What have you done about it?"

"Done?" Shen Wei wasn't sure what Zhao Yunlan was asking about. "I have attempted to—" He cut himself off. Zhao Yunlan had not liked his first attempt at releasing some of the pressure on his system without setting off the light energy. Not at all.

"Shen Wei?" Zhao Yunlan's voice was steadier now. Almost firm enough to make that appeal an order. Zhao Yunlan wanted to know. Shen Wei reminded himself of that, and took a deep breath.

"I have attempted to control the energies." He could bleed dark energy off, but not drain himself of it entirely. Not without losing everything he was. The light energy—it was all he could do to keep it from searing him, corroding his core.

Zhao Yunlan gestured, brought up short by the sling. Shen Wei read a twinge of pain with additional guilt. "Yeah, of course. But you can't keep doing that forever, you said. So—what else have you been doing?"

"Else?"

Zhao Yunlan squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them again. "Right. Okay. Let's see—have you told the SID about this?"

"Yes," Shen Wei said. "They had to know I was not at my full power. That I was a—a liability."

Zhao Yunlan laughed softly, entirely without joy. "Oh. Is that what you are?"

It stung. Shen Wei forced himself to nod.

"And you told them about the—volatility?"

Shen Wei hesitated. He would have, if he had felt himself succumbing. He had been meaning to—but Zhu Hong already carried such weight on her shoulders as Yashou Chieftain, and Da Qing as vice chief of the SID, and they all watched him with such careful concern already. But his failure to let them know meant he had put them all at risk. "No," Shen Wei admitted, unable to bear the weight of Zhao Yunlan's stare.

"Of course you didn't," Zhao Yunlan said, and though there was no profanity in that sentence, Shen Wei could hear where it would go. He looked down at his hands, which he had folded together in his lap.

"So let me get this straight. You're—you have energies out of whack, enough that you're—" Zhao Yunlan paused. Sucked in air. "And you haven't told anyone? Haven't seen anyone about it? Your first—your only plan was to—to portal yourself off somewhere isolated where you could minimize the damage?"

Shen Wei frowned. That was an accurate summary, though he wasn't quite sure why Zhao Yunlan wasn't mentioning how Shen Wei had endangered his team.

"Xiao Wei, my love," Zhao Yunlan said, scorching Shen Wei's heart with the endearment. He was coming closer. "What am I going to do with you?"

Without warning, Shen Wei found himself swept up in a one-armed embrace, pulled to Zhao Yunlan's chest. He noticed how quickly it was moving—irregularly, too.

"Zhao Yunlan?" Shen Wei tried to ask. It came out muffled. Zhao Yunlan's arm was around most of his head, and Shen Wei didn't want to jostle the healing limb. He waited, then slowly folded his arms around Zhao Yunlan's body, feeling it jerking with those harsh breaths. Shen Wei settled against Zhao Yunlan, hoping to calm him. Even if Shen Wei was the cause of all this, he knew it could help, sometimes. Holding Zhao Yunlan close.

It was beyond startling to feel a kiss pressed into his hair. Shen Wei looked up as Zhao Yunlan took half a step back before flopping in the bed next to Shen Wei.

"Sorry," Zhao Yunlan said, crossing his legs over the covers. He sounded slightly out of breath, and his eyes were damp, but his voice was steady. "This is—there's a bit much happening?" He looked at Shen Wei. "So. Let's try again. Who can we talk to for help with this?"

"Help?"

Zhao Yunlan's fingertips brushed Shen Wei's jaw, then withdrew on an expression that was half smile, half grimace. "Fixing you. You didn't think I was going to just let you—go?"

"Light energy and dark energy can't coexist in one body for long," Shen Wei said, wondering if Zhao Yunlan had missed that. There was nothing anybody else could do about that.

"And we know that because people who've accidentally gotten both inside have blown up. Yes. I'm aware. But—Shen Wei. Those people didn't know it was going to happen. Didn't have your powers, or my team, or any of our resources. Come on, baby. Work with me. You're not just anyone—you're Hei Pao Shi. And I'm—" Zhao Yunlan broke off, his hands twitching into fists.

With fresh horror, Shen Wei remembered how Zhao Yunlan had clung to the title of Lord Guardian when the Regent had wanted to rob him of it. Remembered too what he had done to Zhao Yunlan then, to make everyone believe he was his brother.

"Anyway," Zhao Yunlan said, as if the interruption hadn't happened. "We have the SID, and the Hallows—some of the Hallows?"

"All save the Lantern," Shen Wei confirmed.

"Right. We have Hallows." Saying that seemed to cheer Zhao Yunlan up. "You haven't tried those yet, have you?"

"No," Shen Wei said, and before he could add, and neither should you, Zhao Yunlan kept talking.

"So we have my team and the Hallows. And we have the Xingdu Bureau."

That last item on the list was a surprise. "You think Zhao Xinci can help?"

Zhao Yunlan snorted. "Do you think a disapproving lecture will set your energies straight?"

"No?"

"Yeah, exactly. But—Zhang Shi. Wait. You know him, right?"

Shen Wei startled. "Yes?" He hadn't known that Zhang Shi had revealed himself to Zhao Yunlan. In their last conversation, Zhang Shi had still said he preferred for Zhao Yunlan to think of himself as the son of one father, not two. And with everything that had happened since, they had not yet had a proper chance to catch up.

"Right. Well—he's Dixingren, right? But also living in a Haixing body. He's got to know something, don't you think? Plus he's like, super old!"

Shen Wei considered. It was true that Zhang Shi and his host did not share anything like this state of unstable energies, but it was also true that Zhang Shi had seen far more of Dixing and Haixing both than Shen Wei.

Zhao Yunlan shrugged. "And I'm guessing you told my dad where I was, and haven't told my dad where I am, so...probably we need to do that. At some point."

"Oh. Yes." If it hadn't been for Zhao Yunlan's own very nonchalant appraisal of the situation, Shen Wei wouldn't have known how to deal with his mortification. It was true, they had told a coldly furious Zhao Xinci what they knew of his son's fate. But unless someone at the SID had liaised with him since Shen Wei made it back—no, they had not told him Zhao Yunlan was no longer trapped by a mortal enemy in Dixing.

Zhao Yunlan exhaled noisily. "Okay. Shen Wei. Do you agree that we have options?"

The question was not whether Shen Wei thought they were good options, and yet, Shen Wei couldn't help to let his concern show. "I might endanger those very people you are counting on for help."

"You said you didn't know when you might—how soon it could be?"

"I don't."

"And that right now you're controlling the energy balance thing."

"Yes, but—"

"Then we're safe until you start losing control."

Shen Wei didn't know how to argue with that. It was the same reasoning he had used to keep from disclosing his state to Da Qing in his role as vice chief, or Zhu Hong in hers managing the SID. But he had to be adamant about the gravity of the situation. "If I do, I will have to go."

Zhao Yunlan gave him an unreadable look. "Yeah," he said finally. "Yeah, we should set up a rendezvous point so you have somewhere to go if things get critical."

"A point?"

"Northwest, I think. Not a lot of people up in the mountains, but we can drive there fairly quickly."

Shen Wei realized that Zhao Yunlan was talking about coming after him. "No," Shen Wei said. He didn't want Zhao Yunlan anywhere near what would happen, or the aftermath. "No, it's too dangerous."

Zhao Yunlan's eyes flashed, and Shen Wei tensed, ready for another outburst like the one that had just landed him flat on his back in the bed. "Okay, first of all, you don't get to make that call. Second—what do you think will happen if we just cut you loose, huh? Ye Zun isn't going to give up on Haixing. I don't know if you're aware, but he is very stubborn."

It went straight to Shen Wei's heart, how Zhao Yunlan had to force that casual tone when talking about Ye Zun. "Dixing is sealed off…"

"And the Hallows are split up, and Ye Zun has one of them, and his full power, and literally the power of anyone else he wants down there." Zhao Yunlan's words pierced deep. He was right. Zhao Yunlan was right. Shen Wei had a duty—but he also had a duty to protect the people around him.

And more than a duty to Zhao Yunlan—Shen Wei knew what it felt like now, to hurt Zhao Yunlan. And he couldn't. He couldn't stand the idea that he might do so again, no matter how unwittingly. If he lost control of these energies, and Zhao Yunlan stayed—if that was the last thing he saw—

"Hey." Zhao Yunlan's hands covered his interlocked ones. "Shen Wei?"

"I can't," Shen Wei said, looking up at him. Trying to finish his thought. Trying to explain.

"Yeah," Zhao Yunlan said, voice rough. "I know."

Shen Wei held still. Was this Zhao Yunlan agreeing with him? On how important it was that he stay safe?

"And I can't, either. I can't let you leave. Not if it means—not if I know—" He blinked, let his gaze wander for a few moments before he gave Shen Wei a wan smile. "There's only one thing we can do, both of us."

Looking into Zhao Yunlan's eyes, Shen Wei felt more of his misery give in and dissolve in a rush of something better than the circumstances should allow. Hope. "What?"

"Survive."

The surge of hope grew stronger. The idea that he might live—that he might be granted more time with Zhao Yunlan...He wanted nothing more. At the same time he knew how unlikely it was. He turned his hands over, caught Zhao Yunlan's in his, but when he tried to speak he had no voice.

Zhao Yunlan nodded as if in agreement with whatever Shen Wei would have said, and squeezed his hands. "I know it's hard, baby." Zhao Yunlan's voice wavered, and Shen Wei looked up to see his mouth set in a crooked smile, as if in defiance of his own feelings—his own memories. What Zhao Yunlan had endured—had survived—

A warm hand on his cheek drew Shen Wei back into the moment. "But can you promise me that you'll try? That no matter what happens, you won't give up."

What was Shen Wei to do? There was nothing Zhao Yunlan could ask of him that he wouldn't do. For all that he had never spoken the words out loud, he had already pledged his heart and soul to his beloved. His life was already Zhao Yunlan's, and if Zhao Yunlan wanted him to hold on to it as long as he could, he would.

"I promise," Shen Wei said, his voice rough, and watched as Zhao Yunlan's face lit up in a true, brilliant smile.

It was a night for promises. They had not come easy—talking Shen Wei down had been excruciating, and exhausting, just like every single damn thing they'd both had to deal with in the past twenty-four hours.

But he'd done it. Had gotten Shen Wei to promise he wouldn't just give up—and then as they talked, Shen Wei had promised him there was nothing else he was keeping from Zhao Yunlan. No more secrets waiting to knock his world out from under him again, leaving him sleepless next to a dozing Shen Wei. Wanting to do things. Fix things.

Fix Shen Wei.

Not that he could do anything about it now. Not even call his team together. When Shen Wei had sprung the whole energies thing on him and he'd started brainstorming solutions it had still been far too early to contact anyone. Now the washed-out gray of an overcast dawn was making the room bright to Zhao Yunlan's eyes. But when they'd decided to wait it had still been pitch black, and while Zhao Yunlan could have roused his team, he'd have them all panicked and sleep-deprived. While it was not a good feeling to waste time Shen Wei didn't have, everyone would do a lot better if they were at least marginally rested for what was to come.

As for calling Zhao Xinci—there Zhao Yunlan was the one who wanted to be at least marginally rested. The worst part was that even if his father didn't say anything, just thinking about him made the guilt come creeping up. Zhao Yunlan had set out to Dixing with the Hallows to take Ye Zun out. He'd come back one Hallow short, with Ye Zun no closer to being taken out. As far as failures went, it was pretty...total. The fact that they had all lived, even him—

"Zhao Yunlan?"

When Zhao Yunlan turned his head on the pillow, Shen Wei's eyes were open. It gave him a start that he did his best to hide, as it happened again—heart leaping in his chest as he spent a split-second wrestling his fear down with solid logic. It was Shen Wei. Of course it was Shen Wei. Ye Zun couldn't just take his place—not here, not in Haixing.

"Hey. You were asleep." It had been so unexpected, and so cute, Shen Wei agreeing to keep Zhao Yunlan company in bed, then drifting off himself. At rest he looked so much like his younger self, so sweet and unguarded that Zhao Yunlan hadn't had the heart to disturb him.

"But you weren't?" Shen Wei frowned in consternation.

Zhao Yunlan shrugged his good shoulder. "Jetlag?" he offered, because he didn't want to go into the overlapping traumas vying for attention every time he closed his eyes, and the fluttering of Ye Zun against his mind. Or the fact that having to see his father made him feel worse than almost any of those.

"Yunlan. You need to sleep," Shen Wei said.

Zhao Yunlan agreed. He did. He was bone-weary and aching and absolutely in need of at least one more day doing nothing but taking painkillers, sleeping, and eating Shen Wei's food. And yet being aware of that fact did nothing at all when it came to actually letting him fall asleep. "Well. It's kind of morning now?"

Shen Wei sat up. He was wearing one of Zhao Yunlan's plain white tees, having changed out of the dress shirt and vest. (They had both been flecked in damp patches left by tears and snot and also blood, but Zhao Yunlan was choosing to believe they were salvageable, because he had so many truly terrible things in his life that he did not need a sartorial tragedy on top of it.) The worn cotton made him look—undressed. With arms, and shoulders, and Zhao Yunlan thought possibly Shen Wei had said something but he had been noticing all the places that t-shirt clung to Shen Wei he knew it didn't on himself. "Hm?"

There was concern in Shen Wei's expression when he said, "What would help you rest? Some herbal tea? Or are you hungry?"

Thinking about food made Zhao Yunlan's stomach do a slow flip. "No, thanks. It's…" After spending all that energy getting Shen Wei to stop hiding things it felt disingenuous to claim 'nothing'. "You know. Everything." He sat up too, yawning as he pulled his hand through hair that felt overly long and far too fluffy and in complete disarray.

Shen Wei's expression of concern increased in intensity. Zhao Yunlan felt himself scrutinized as Shen Wei tried to find some way of improving the situation. "Then...should you take more medicine?"

Zhao Yunlan smiled, and draped himself over Shen Wei, kissing his cheek and wrapping his arms around Shen Wei's waist. "You're the best medicine for me, baby." It was true. Literally, even. Shen Wei had healed him to a degree which no surgeon or drugs could have managed. Even his eyes hurt less, though the room was getting bright.

"Yunlan," Shen Wei said, half-scolding, half fond. But his arm came around Zhao Yunlan's shoulders without hesitation, and Zhao Yunlan sighed happily.

"I guess I'm just not tired enough to sleep? And besides, look. The sun's up—we can start talking to people now."

"But you need rest."

Rest would be so nice. Maybe he should let Ye Zun into his mind so he could ask for a bit of a break. Have a stern talk with Shen Wei's energies about the benefits of peaceful coexistence. Zhao Yunlan gave a less happy sigh, and thoughtfully rubbed his cheek against Shen Wei's shoulder. "How about I promise to nap as much as I can?"

Shen Wei was stiffly unhappy under the thin t-shirt—already he'd lost the borrowed heat from sharing covers with Zhao Yunlan. But he didn't protest, because short of getting the Lantern back and having another go at controlling time, there was nothing either of them could do about that fact that they had more important things at hand.

Just as Zhao Yunlan didn't protest when Shen Wei did not agree a lollipop would do for breakfast, but made him eat leftover congee. It didn't come back up immediately, which was nice. Though as he looked through his contacts on the phone Da Qing had left him to find Director Zhao, Xingdu Bureau, it was a close thing. It was a mobile number, not a landline—Zhao Yunlan hadn't called often enough to know if it might still be a work number, but. Well.

He took the plunge.

It was an anticlimactic release of one kind of tension for another when the call rang out and put him through to voicemail instead. Of course Zhao Xinci would be screening random calls from unknown numbers when the sun was barely over the horizon—Zhao Yunlan should have realized, and prepared something. Something better than, "We need to talk as soon as possible. Coming over to your office. ...oh, yeah. Hi, it's Yunlan, I'm...here now? Yeah. See you soon. Or call me back! On...I have no idea, this is a new phone, just check caller ID?"

Shen Wei tried to console him that it wasn't that garbled a message, but Zhao Yunlan was morosely considering instant retirement into a mountain hermitage. He'd quite like to give up all his worldly possessions including the phone. Especially the phone.

Despite a lollipop Zhao Yunlan’s mood didn't lift when he picked an outfit for the day with consideration for which jacket would best hide the bruises on his throat and wrists—it wasn’t like Zhao Xinci didn't know where his son had been, but Zhao Yunlan would really prefer to avoid focusing too much on that.

When they set out the air had a winter bite to it, the world damp and gray under overcast skies. Zhao Yunlan hadn't found the keys to the Jeep anywhere, and Shen Wei very apologetically had no idea where it was parked. He wasn't exactly in shape to get them anywhere by bike, either, so the plan was to go hail a cab.

The plan lasted until they made it past the gates to their apartment complex, and Zhao Yunlan spotted his car, right there on the curb. He stopped, warning bells starting to ring—and then they all fell silent when he saw the tall figure reclining in the driver's seat. "Is that…"

"Lin Jing?" Shen Wei sounded as perplexed as Zhao Yunlan was.

Coming closer, they could see that Lin Jing was fast asleep, head lolled to the side, a bit of drool from his open mouth smeared on the headrest. He was wearing a hoodie, but there was a very familiar green jacket with the words GIVE ME A reason emblazoned on the back draped over his torso.

"Da Qing?" Zhao Yunlan said, baffled. As if that were an instant summoning spell a round fuzzy head popped up over the steering wheel—presumably from having been curled comfortably in Lin Jing's lap.

"Lao Zhao!" The cry was muffled by the Jeep's solid body, but it woke Lin Jing with a start. Da Qing threw himself towards the passenger door, his paws scrabbling against the window before Lin Jing tapped him between his ears.

Da Qing stilled. Turned human. Scrabbled at the door handle with his hands, and came careening out. "Lao Zhao!" He flung his arms around Zhao Yunlan, heedless of the sling, squeezing all the air and a pained oof out of the target of his affection.

Zhao Yunlan grinned around his lollipop, and got his arm free to ruffle Da Qing's hair, then tried to shove him off before Shen Wei could get more mad than he already was at this careless handling of an injured Zhao Yunlan. When he could breathe again he said, "Da Qing. What are you guys doing here?"

"You're up! You're okay?" Da Qing sniffed Zhao Yunlan cautiously, clinging to his good arm all the while.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine—but what are you doing here?"

"We got your message! So I stayed with Lin Jing, just in case."

"We were keeping an eye on the place," Lin Jing said from inside the car, rubbing tiredly at his face. He'd gotten most of the drool. "And, you know. We figured you might need a ride?"

"So. All night, the two of you…?"

"Not all night. Sang Zan made fish!"

Zhao Yunlan didn't know what to say. Without being asked, without even letting him know, he'd had these two watching over him, just waiting in case he came outside needing a ride. Needing his team. "Well," he said, rocking back on his heels and plucking his diminished lollipop out to wave it sternly at Da Qing. "I'm definitely docking your bonuses for that."

Inside the car Lin Jing made a chagrined noise, but Zhao Yunlan caught the sparkle in his eyes, and the relish with which he and Da Qing complained about their mean boss. Hearing them like that, seeing his car again, standing here under the ever-changing sky...Zhao Yunlan stretched before he hopped in the back seat, feeling like he had rediscovered what it was like to have space to breathe.

Zhao Yunlan announced their destination to a beat of silence, and then got questioned in stereo. Lin Jing very carefully made sure Zhao Yunlan knew that he had been doing important work with Li Qian in what had been Professor Ouyang's lab, and would very sadly be extremely busy there until he was needed to chauffeur his chief around. Da Qing just snorted and announced he would 'watch the car'.

There had been no calls or messages, and it was still early enough that the parking lot outside of the large government building only contained a scattering of cars. Through the security check, which Zhao Yunlan felt odd passing unchallenged after all that fuss Minister Gao and his minions had kicked up before he went to Dixing, Lin Jing darted off to the lab and Shen Wei had to lead the way. Zhao Yunlan only knew where the Xingdu Bureau's offices were located in the vaguest sense—it was in the here be monsters part of his mental map of this place.

It was remarkably ordinary. Really, just more of the same kind of office: dark wood paneling, stuffy furniture, a painting of some inspirational Haixing politician from the days of long robes, and a corner where the Director could sit and take tea with guests.

Which they weren't doing, because Zhao Xinci had stood up so fast his chair rolled back to smack against the wall, and then neglected to offer them anything to drink in favor of staring at them, as dumbstruck as Zhao Yunlan had ever seen him before rounding his desk and barreling toward them.

"What is the meaning of this?"

It struck a nerve that his father's first words weren't ones of relief—weren't even aimed at him. Zhao Yunlan didn't protest when Shen Wei shifted forward like a starlet's personal bodyguard ready to intercept an overeager fan. "Director Zhao. A moment of your time, please?"

"Who—" Zhao Xinci gestured, and Zhao Yunlan readied a smile and pressed past Shen Wei with a wave.

"Hi, Dad."

Chapter Text

"Yunlan?"

It sounded like he couldn't believe what he was seeing—Zhao Yunlan back in one piece. Like Zhao Xinci had already resigned himself to never seeing his son again—or at least not before he got reports that the Ye Zun problem had been taken care of. Zhao Yunlan felt his smile twisting. "Yeah."

"You're back?" Zhao Xinci's attention shifted from his son to Shen Wei. "How—what did you do?"

Zhao Yunlan didn't have to look at Shen Wei's face to know the effect those words would have. He stepped forward to stand shoulder to shoulder with Shen Wei. "He saved me, Dad," Zhao Yunlan said before Zhao Xinci could drive his line of questioning deeper into Shen Wei's wounded heart. He had never made a secret of what Shen Wei was to him, not even to his dad. But he hadn't ever made a point of it, either. He did now, reaching for his Dixingren lover's hand, lacing their fingers together as he said, "Shen Wei got me out of Dixing."

"You're—

—safe."

The change happened between one word and the next. Zhao Yunlan thought he saw a flash of gold in his father's eyes before he was swept up in a hug. It was angled to protect the arm he'd left in its sling, but brimming with emotion. Zhao Yunlan closed his eyes. Reluctantly let go of Shen Wei to shift into the embrace and raise his hand to rest it on his father's back.

It was the oddest feeling. He wasn't Zhang Shi's son in any sense of the word, and yet to Zhang Shi, he was precious enough to lose composure over in a way his actual father hadn't been willing to.

When Zhang Shi let him go, it was with a smile for Shen Wei. "I didn't think it possible," he said. "Your powers exceed any expectations, Hei Pao Shi."

Zhao Yunlan winced, feeling Shen Wei stiffening at his side. "Actually," he said, making sure to press as close to Shen Wei as he could get. "That's kind of what we need to talk about."

"And what about Dixing? Is the threat Ye Zun presents under control?"

The sting was back in Zhao Xinci's voice. Or maybe just in Zhao Yunlan's heart. This time Shen Wei was the one to answer, "We will brief you on the situation. But rest assured that there is no imminent threat to Dragon City."

Zhao Xinci did not look much placated before he smiled, abruptly, and offered them tea and a place to sit. Zhao Yunlan demonstratively took the stuffy couch, tugging Shen Wei along and sitting closer than strictly necessary.

Together, they got Zhang Shi caught up on events. Zhang Shi and probably Zhao Xinci too? Zhao Yunlan decided it wasn't his business who was behind the wheel and which of them could follow what. By the time Shen Wei was explaining what had happened to him, and what he thought would happen, Zhao Yunlan was fairly certain all of the concern he saw belonged to Zhang Shi, who didn't bat an eye when Zhao Yunlan picked up Shen Wei's hand again, squeezing it encouragingly as he laid out the painful facts. When he was done, Zhang Shi put his teacup on the table and leaned back in his armchair, frowning thoughtfully. "Well. That is a bit of a mess, isn't it?"

Zhao Yunlan wanted to bristle, but Zhang Shi wasn't wrong. "Have you ever—fixed anything like this?" he asked.

Zhang Shi raised an eyebrow in a gesture entirely unlike Zhao Xinci. "Me? Fixed it? No. I have heard of similar situations ending poorly, but you do realize this is vanishingly rare? I have gone entire lifespans without hearing of anyone getting themselves into this particular pickle. And," he raised a hand to forestall Zhao Yunlan's impatient question, "none of the ones I heard about ever sought me out."

Shen Wei nodded stoically, and Zhao Yunlan leaned forward to stare at Zhang Shi. "Okay. But can you help?"

It was weird hearing his father's laugh molded into a jovial chuckle. "You are tenacious." Zhang Shi looked at Shen Wei. "Both of you. Beyond belief."

"Which means?"

"That I will do everything in my power to help you do what nobody else has ever managed before."

"Thanks," Zhao Yunlan said. Beside him, Shen Wei...didn't exactly relax, but stopped sitting on the couch like he was just waiting for a sign to get up and leave.

"So," Zhang Shi said. "Can you show me the state of your energies?"

Shen Wei did. Somehow. Zhao Yunlan wasn't entirely sure how—he could see a little bit of black swirling over Shen Wei's upturned palm, but not get why Zhang Shi made a thoughtful, "Ah," and asked Shen Wei more questions Zhao Yunlan couldn't follow.

The answer was more of Shen Wei holding his palm out. This time he closed his fist and turned it over, as Zhang Shi nodded, and asked something about containment and coherence, which Shen Wei answered with a few words, and more gestures. Zhang Shi reached out to touch the air near Shen Wei, and Shen Wei startled back. There was another "Ah," and then Zhang Shi said, "Again?"

Zhao Yunlan watched as carefully as he could. Shen Wei was single-mindedly focused on the...examination? Zhang Shi might not be able to generate dark energy with Zhao Xinci's body, but he was clearly able to perceive it, and manipulate it, and spend a really, really, really long time staring thoughtfully at it.

The sense of urgency that had driven Zhao Yunlan out of bed at the crack of dawn was still telling him he needed to move. Act. Fix things. And yet, whatever Zhang Shi and Shen Wei were doing—it would clearly have to take the time it took. The important thing was that Shen Wei wasn't looking like this was costing him too much. He was still pale, but not alarmingly so, and he didn't sound like he was going to start coughing up blood. Zhao Yunlan stilled his impatience, and tried not to mind how stuffy his father's office was.

Tried to stifle a yawn, and was relieved when he didn't get told off when he failed. Neither Shen Wei nor Zhang Shi—or even Zhao Xinci—was paying him any attention. They simply talked in low voices, half the conversation laid out in gestures and currents of power Zhao Yunlan couldn't see. He blinked, trying to focus. The lights in here weren't that bright and it was overcast outside, but after so long in near-darkness his eyes were getting tired. He glanced at Shen Wei, who was questioning Zhang Shi on the particulars of—enmeshment? That could be a word, right? But it didn't seem like anyone would mind if he closed his eyes. Just for a minute.

Shen Wei was very nice and solid to lean against, too. An arm came around Zhao Yunlan's shoulders, holding him comfortably tight, so he didn't start sliding as he relaxed. His eyes felt better like this. And the faint shifting of light and shadow he could see through his eyelids—that was good. This wasn't Dixing. Wasn't anywhere dangerous. There was a strangely soothing presence in the room, and he was with Shen Wei.

Safe. With Shen Wei.

Zhang Shi hummed thoughtfully, turning his own hands over as if he could build the same kind of latticework of energy that Shen Wei had just shown him. It gave Shen Wei a moment to reinforce his defenses against Ye Zun's renewed attempts to batter through.

Then Zhao Yunlan moved and Zhang Shi paused, his gaze drawn to Zhao Yunlan's sleeping form. His face softened as Zhao Yunlan rolled over, pulling his boots up on the sofa and coming to rest his head in Shen Wei's lap. Shen Wei hesitated, torn between decorum and his acute awareness of Zhao Yunlan's exhaustion. There were dark circles under his closed eyes, and the hollow shadow of deprivation showed so clearly in his freshly shaven cheeks. That Zhao Xinci hadn't even asked about his health—

"It's good for him to rest," Zhang Shi said, keeping his voice low and even. At his fond smile, Shen Wei slid his hand from the sofa to rest gently on Zhao Yunlan's carefully styled hair.

"Yes." Had it been Zhao Xinci sitting across from them Shen Wei doubted Zhao Yunlan would have been comfortable enough to take one of his promised naps, but in Zhang Shi's presence he had relaxed with surprising speed. Almost as if he could feel the approval now radiating from Zhang Shi.

"Well. I did not want to alarm him, but—what you asked, about my own symbiosis with my hosts' light energy?"

This was alarming Shen Wei, but he signalled that Zhang Shi should go on.

"Even for me, it is...not uncomplicated."

That was a surprising admission. "Is there any danger to Director Zhao?"

Zhang Shi shook his head, and a familiar smirk flashed across his expression. Zhao Xinci saying as if. "Not after so long an association. But there was, once. It is...difficult for me to leave my hosts. Which I believe has some bearing on your own state."

"The co-mingling of energies?"

"Yes," Zhang Shi agreed. "Before I knew how to keep them safe, there were hosts that did not survive my joining with them."

"You mean—" Shen Wei wanted to know he had heard correctly. If Zhao Xinci knew about this—technically this would be a case of a Dixingren killing in Haixing, even if it was a very long time ago.

Zhang Shi chuckled. "No people were harmed. And I do honor the sacrifice of those first creatures who had the misfortune to cross my path after I had lost my original form."

It took Shen Wei a moment until he realized—zhang, the river deer, and shi, the lion. "Oh," he exclaimed, all surprised relief.

"Yes. Even Haixing's creatures have light energy—and so dark energy will cause immeasurable harm if not harnessed in them. So when I said I had never known of anyone suffering what you are...that was true. But it is also true that I know more about this than I have said."

Shen Wei appreciated that Zhang Shi had not wanted to worry Zhao Yunlan. "Go on."

Zhang Shi pressed the point that his own experience was unique, as he needed a host to sustain him. But he also had deep insights into what it took to separate the two kinds of energies, which he elaborated on with the help of the energy structures Shen Wei conjured for him to manipulate.

"—Here," he concluded, moved both hands around the swirling force until it was contained in a sphere within his hands. "Now in this state, it can be moved. Transferred."

The conclusion was obvious, after everything they had discussed, "But it can only be safely contained if there is a vessel."

"Yes. In my experience anything else is—messy."

Shen Wei considered the problem. The empty hands—an empty vessel. Or one with room enough to spare. "If there was a conduit…" he mused.

"Did you not say you had retrieved the Sundial of Longevity?"

"Yes. But—the Hallows aren't simple tools to be used." They were dangerous. Shen Wei knew that better than anyone.

"You mean, used without getting Zhao Yunlan involved."

"What?" Shen Wei stared at Zhang Shi.

As if in reaction to the flare of emotion, Zhao Yunlan shifted, curling closer to Shen Wei in his sleep. The motion drew both their attention. Shen Wei brushed a few stray hairs falling across Zhao Yunlan's forehead back into place and Zhang Shi sighed. "We both worried, you know," he said, still looking at Zhao Yunlan. "Terribly. It is...not easy, to send your child into danger."

Shen Wei didn't know what to say. Uncharitably he thought of the distance Zhao Xinci had kept from the SID while their precarious status was being sorted out, allowed to remain on their premises on sufferance despite everything they had sacrificed. Everything Zhao Yunlan had sacrificed. He had heard no worried father's requests during the weeks he and Zhao Yunlan's team worked to bring him back.

"And he is not yet out of danger." Zhang Shi's eyes met Shen Wei's.

"I won't let him—"

"Hei Pao Shi," Zhang Shi said with a courteous nod to apologize for the interruption. "I do not doubt your gallantry when it comes to protecting the one you love. But I knew Yunlan as a child and I know him as a man. Whether or not you let him, do you really think that he will stand down and allow you to keep him out of harm's way?"

"Then what are you saying?" Shen Wei asked, a rush of temper hot under his skin.

Zhang Shi eyed him thoughtfully. "Zhao Yunlan's energy was the catalyst for this. Zhao Yunlan and the Sundial of Longevity."

The heat plummeted to cold dread. "No. What it did to him—what it could do…"

"I do understand the risks. And I do not believe that Zhao Yunlan is ignorant of them. But you must consider that if you cannot manage the manipulation of both energies on your own, the Hallows' help and a willing vessel might be your only choice."

"No," Shen Wei said. He didn't understand how Zhang Shi could look so calm. "It could kill him."

"Yes." Zhang Shi's eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward. "But that is not the only danger here. Not where Zhao Yunlan's safety is concerned."

"Excuse me?"

"Do you really not see it, Shen Wei?"

The drop in formality registered at once. Zhang Shi was looking at Zhao Yunlan again, speaking not as a Dixingren scholar, but as a man who had helped raise Zhao Yunlan from childhood. "See what?"

"That your death would not save him."

Zhang Shi said it without malice or accusation, but it cut the words out of Shen Wei's mouth. He wanted to say that it wasn't true. That he could keep Zhao Yunlan safe, no matter what—but he could not. If Shen Wei could guarantee that Ye Zun was no longer a threat—but even then. Even then he had to admit that Zhao Yunlan had been very clear on what he needed from Shen Wei.

Survive. He had made Shen Wei promise. And if he broke that promise... Shen Wei looked down, to see Zhao Yunlan's sleeping face tense unhappily, as if he had heard Shen Wei's thoughts. Lines of pain were showing more starkly, Zhao Yunlan's breath coming faster. Shen Wei drew his fingertips across Zhao Yunlan's brow, willing the tension there away.

"So you see," Zhang Shi continued in that even tone. "It is not easy to bring danger to those you love. But sometimes, it is the only choice. Sometimes, protecting them…"

A prickling sensation, like dark energy long-held being released, and Zhang Shi's expression shifted.

"Sometimes that doesn't go the way you plan, either," Zhao Xinci said. He frowned, and shook his head. "I did not raise that boy to put his shoes on the furniture."

Zhao Yunlan twitched, body tensing. Shen Wei squeezed his shoulder, and the reassuring touch rocked Zhao Yunlan awake. His eyes flew wide and his first breath was a gasp that Shen Wei could see him force into a yawn. He oozed upright by pressing up against Shen Wei as he swung his feet off the sofa. "So—did I miss anything?"

Walking into the SID flanked by Shen Wei, Da Qing and Lin Jing made Zhao Yunlan feel at once safe and exposed. They were all watching him. But they weren't saying anything about whatever they saw, and only Shen Wei was hovering. Then he pushed the doors open and drew the attention of another five pairs of eyes.

Zhu Hong strode toward him with her head held high, everyone else following behind her like geese in springtime. Her eyes were bright as she looked him over from head to toe. She nodded sharply, then said, "Lao Zhao."

"Zhu Hong. Thanks," Zhao Yunlan said, lifting his arm in its sling. He suspected she didn't want to dwell on the injuries she'd treated any more than he did.

"Chief Zhao. Welcome back," Wang Zheng said, smiling with her whole face. Next to her Sang Zan nodded eagerly.

"How are you feeling?" That was Xiao Guo, a walking contradiction of anxiety and relief. Lao Chu glared mildly at the question.

Zhao Yunlan flopped into the couch in the middle of the room with a tired sigh. He had no desire to talk about how he was feeling. But they had all had to deal with him getting blood and worse everywhere and Shen Wei freaking out and disappearing with Zhao Yunlan tagging along, so he owed them more than fine. He waited until Shen Wei had sat down next to him, and said, "Mostly healed." Shen Wei didn't flinch, but Zhao Yunlan felt the guilt radiating off of him and gave his knee a reassuring pat. "My eyes have stopped hurting, pretty much, and...and it feels good to be back."

More relief, at that. More of that same anxiety he'd seen in Xiao Guo, too. They hadn't known they would get him back, and they had worried. It made Zhao Yunlan duck his head for a moment, wishing he'd kept the sunglasses. "You did good," he said when he could bear to meet all of their eyes again. "The work you did. Getting the SID back, getting its chief back—"

Their smiles were blinding. Zhao Yunlan blinked, then grinned at them. "You all deserve a good vacation." That was a thought. Now that Wang Zheng and Sang Zan were apparently back to being perfectly corporeal and not energy-based, they could go somewhere together.

Xiao Guo fell for the distraction and started suggesting holiday destinations to a roll of Lao Chu's eyes. Zhao Yunlan wanted to let that levity spin out—wanted to get all of them talking about tropical beaches and auroras and panda safaris—but he couldn't. There wasn't time—Shen Wei didn't have time. Later, he promised himself. Later he'd make it up to all of them, as his smile deflated and the conversation came to a stuttering halt without him even needing to say anything.

"But first—um." Zhao Yunlan experienced a moment's disconnect. The expectant faces around him, the tension—it was both comfortably familiar and strange to find them waiting on what he had to say. He found himself half expecting an interruption, a protest at him getting ready to order people around. None came, because here he was the one who gave orders, and there was no danger in being the center of attention. None at all. He squeezed Shen Wei's leg, and he went on. "Lin Jing. How quickly can you put together a tracker?"

"For what?" Lin Jing looked confused.

Right. That was probably starting at the wrong end.

Zhao Yunlan glanced at Shen Wei, then sighed. "Shen Wei told you guys about the energy thing, right?"

The anxiety level in the room rose tangibly. "Yes," Zhu Hong said. "Why?"

"Well. It's getting worse. Way worse." Zhao Yunlan felt Shen Wei's hand come to rest on his, and found the strength to summon a half smile. "And we're going to fix it, we are, but— just in case, Shen Wei needs to be able to go somewhere there aren't any other people."

The implications didn't take long to sink in. Zhao Yunlan ignored his team's reactions, ignored the implications. "Which means we need a way to find him."

"Chief Zhao?" Wang Zheng had raised her hand, as if she were a student in Shen Wei's class. "If it is tracking you want, I've got another duplicate of your phone set up. It's got a location finder?"

Lin Jing stared at her. "A phone?"

Wang Zheng didn't shrink back. "As long as it's on, we'll be able to use the GPS to see where it is. So Professor Shen could keep it until you're done with your dark energy detector?"

A gloriously simple solution. Zhao Yunlan snapped his fingers and pointed at Wang Zheng. "Brilliant. Give it here, and then give yourself a bonus."

Wang Zheng laughed and went to get the phone while Lin Jing repeated, "A phone."

"Okay. So," Zhao Yunlan said." What we really need to talk about is the Hallows."

Zhao Yunlan could not have gotten a stronger reaction if he'd gotten up and set fire to the table. "What?" he asked over the din. "They're useful!" And they were what had started all this. The Dial, and Zhao Yunlan. And Zhang Shi agreed with him, so it wasn't like Da Qing getting in his face because he sometimes maybe lost a bit of consciousness over them was going to stop him.

"Tell them," Zhao Yunlan urged Shen Wei.

Shen Wei looked as pained as if Zhao Yunlan had asked him to deliver the information in interpretative dance.

"They won't listen to me," Zhao Yunlan said in a stage whisper. "They think I've got a thing for the Hallows."

"You do!" Da Qing complained.

"And it's mutual," Lin Jing muttered. That the Hallows never responded to any of the experiments Lin Jing had done on them while falling all over themselves to glow and resonate whenever Zhao Yunlan touched them was a bit of a sore spot. The only thing that had kept Lin Jing from acting like a jilted suitor was the way the Hallows kept knocking Zhao Yunlan out.

"Yeah, well, Zhang Shi thinks they're a good bet for trying to fix the energy thing," Zhao Yunlan said, feeling a little defensive. "Right?"

Shen Wei was spared the need to explain when Wang Zheng gently interrupted to hand Shen Wei the temporary tracker phone. "I have made it so that you don't need to unlock it to use it. If you need to call, just touch the green picture of the receiver here—" Wang Zheng pointed, "Then you can dial any number or choose a name from the list."

"Thank you," Shen Wei said, and carefully stowed the phone away in his coat pocket.

It made Zhao Yunlan a little calmer, knowing he had that lifeline to Shen Wei. Though that he needed the lifeline at all—it was all he could do to sit here without wrapping himself around Shen Wei, making it impossible for him to go away and leave Zhao Yunlan behind. Again—no. Not again. Shen Wei hadn't left, before. Hadn't ever left, not by his own free will. But what had happened last time they were parted—Zhao Yunlan could probably be excused for considering winding himself around Shen Wei like an amorous octopus.

Especially as Shen Wei was finally telling the others what they needed to know about the energy imbalance. Shen Wei didn't say Zhao Yunlan's energy is killing me, but pretty much everyone darted quick, concerned glances at their chief. His hand found Shen Wei's, and Shen Wei's fingers wound together with his. The steady presence of Shen Wei's cool palm against his own was something to focus on that wasn't the undeniable facts being laid out like bodies in a morgue.

Zhao Yunlan let Shen Wei bow his head in apology for being there, for the danger he presented, only because he saw the gleam in Zhu Hong's eyes. "Professor Shen," she said sharply. "There is nowhere else you should be but here. The SID is best equipped to help, after all." Eager nods and agreement around the table, and Shen Wei looked—confused. Zhao Yunlan squeezed Shen Wei's hand, and when their eyes met and Zhao Yunlan smiled at him, he got a quirk of pale lips.

"There you have it," Zhao Yunlan said. "And so—the Hallows!"

Shen Wei didn't look thrilled. Neither did anyone else.

"Okay, but—plan first, then Hallows. Right?" Lin Jing said, eyeing Zhao Yunlan suspiciously.

"Sure," Zhao Yunlan agreed magnanimously.

"And if you have to use them, you have to remember to sit down, Chief Zhao," Wang Zheng said sternly.

"If it makes you happy, I'll even lie down."

Da Qing snorted. "Like you need any encouragement to lie down."

"Damn cat, you should know about lying down. At least I don't shed all over!" Zhao Yunlan could feel himself grinning at the very ordinary exchange, at the crushing weight of everything wrong getting a bit lighter as his entire team stepped in to take it onto their own shoulders.

Lin Jing had stood up, and was rolling their whiteboard over. Zhao Yunlan caught a glimpse of calculations—distance? Trajectories? And then Lin Jing had erased all that and was standing at the ready, marker in hand. "So," he said. "Professor Shen. Could you go over the energy transfer constraints as Zhang Shi explained them? That’s a good place to start."

"Of course. If you'll permit me?" He stood up, and Lin Jing tossed him the marker with a flourish. Shen Wei caught it, and there was another of those pale smiles playing around his lips. Zhao Yunlan grinned in fierce pleasure, and settled in to watch his brilliant professor at work.

But between one step and the next, Shen Wei froze. His head flew up, in a way Zhao Yunlan recognized as full alertness, scanning the surroundings while holding himself still so he wouldn't draw attention. Long habit of shared scouting patrols had him copying Shen Wei in utter silence, rather than letting a spooked What? escape him.

"What is it?" Xiao Guo exclaimed.

The room exploded.

No—not the room. It was Shen Wei.

At first Zhao Yunlan very nearly dissolved into cold terror at the thought that the worst had happened—but that wasn't it either. Shen Wei stood there, untouched. Around him furniture had scattered, shooting off to land to cries and commotion. The whiteboard had flipped end over end and wobbled a few times where it landed before toppling with a clatter. Lin Jing had been lucky it hadn't hit him head on, but was still sprawled on the floor, along with half the SID.

Zhao Yunlan himself had felt the pulse of power—had been knocked back into the couch as if by a giant flyswatter, and was scrambling to get to his feet. To get to Shen Wei. "What was that?" And then he felt it. The touch of Ye Zun's power like a sticky hand against his mind. He gasped, shuddering, pushing, and noticed that Shen Wei had one hand up. To—to defend himself against Ye Zun? But why had he released so much energy, why had he—

Shen Wei's face was ashen, his lips so tightly pressed together they had lost all color and his eyes—his eyes were huge and scared behind the glasses.

Zhao Yunlan took another step toward him, broken bits of crockery crunching underfoot. "Shen Wei?"

Around them, Lao Chu and Zhu Hong were helping Wang Zheng and Sang Zan up, while Xiao Guo—shielded from the blast by Lao Chu—scurried over to check on a groaning Lin Jing. Da Qing had gone feline, and was bristling on top of the table. Zhao Yunlan could spare no words for any of them.

"I—I'm sorry," Shen Wei breathed, his chest heaving. "That—it wasn't—I didn't mean—"

Shen Wei didn't mean to push with his energy, just as he hadn't meant to heal Zhao Yunlan before. It just. Spilled over. Uncontained.

Zhao Yunlan wanted to punch the thought, and shook his head in sharp denial. It couldn't be happening. Not so soon—not now, they were so close to doing something about it, Shen Wei couldn't leave. "It's okay," Zhao Yunlan said. "Nobody's hurt." He hoped that was true. Nobody was down for the count, at least.

"Zhao Yunlan," Shen Wei said, in a tone that made Zhao Yunlan's heart freeze. "I must. I'm sorry. I can't stay, not like this. It's too dangerous."

"No!"

The portal opened behind Shen Wei, right there in the middle of the office, and Zhao Yunlan wasn't close enough this time. Couldn't throw himself after Shen Wei, couldn't catch him and haul him out of the darkness summoned by his own hands as he stepped back and was engulfed.

Chapter Text

"He's still not answering." Zhao Yunlan exhaled noisily and lowered his phone.

Zhu Hong navigated the Jeep around another pothole large enough to swallow a smaller vehicle, and Lin Jing cleared his throat. "Like I said, the reception out here isn't great. And the pings we got were pretty far from the nearest antenna tower." He didn't add any other reassurance. Didn't say that Shen Wei was fine, that he would call them back as soon as he could. Lin Jing had given them a few updates on the phone moving at first, but then he'd gotten cagey.

Zhao Yunlan didn't want to think about what it meant if the phone wasn't moving. If something had happened, if Shen Wei had—if anything had gone wrong, would Lin Jing be able to tell?

Another pothole, less easily avoided, made Zhao Yunlan feel sick. He unwrapped a lollipop and shoved it in his mouth to get rid of the taste of bile. His stomach hadn't actually bothered him since Shen Wei had knocked himself out healing it. This was just queasiness from the bumpy ride. That and maybe also from eating too much greasy street food at the SID because there had been nothing else for him to do while they waited. Probably. Though the fact that he was so strung out with nerves he might as well have been guzzling battery acid might have something to do with it too.

Zhao Yunlan had wanted to leave the moment Shen Wei disappeared. He was held back by logistics. Lin Jing pointed out that it would be really dumb to head up into the mountain if they couldn't track Shen Wei because their standard equipment didn't have any reception. The solution to that had been Cong Bo. Lin Jing had gotten set up with some kind of wireless satellite connection plugged into what looked like a military-grade tablet. He'd also borrowed a drone that he'd stashed in the trunk with the care of a nerdy collector with a mint condition figure still in its box.

While the others cleaned up the mess Shen Wei's power pulse had made, Wang Zheng had been on the phone scaring up another four-wheel drive from the Haixing Ministry of Supervision. She'd also gotten them a permit to pass the roadblock meant to keep daytrippers from taking the crumbling roads that had yet to be properly rebuilt after the Awl-induced earthquake.

All that, and now it had been hours. Hours of waiting until Zhao Yunlan could go find out if Shen Wei was even—how Shen Wei was even doing.

Hours. And he was feeling like this. How had Shen Wei even gotten through the weeks before making it to Dixing to get Zhao Yunlan out? Even as each new jolt from the rough road made his shoulder in its sling twinge—a physical reminder of those weeks—the knowledge that this was nothing compared to what Shen Wei had suffered made him feel worse. So he tried not to think about that. There were so many things he was trying not to think about.

He leaned his temple against the glass of the backseat window, mindful of how the bumps in the road could send his skull bouncing off of it. But it felt cool, like Shen Wei's palm, and it let him see a bit more of the landscape outside. It wasn't even past sundown, but the leaden skies and looming mountains were making it dark enough that it felt like driving through the impact-ravaged Haixing of Shen Wei's youth.

The headlights of the second car cut a visible swath through the gloomy forest as Lao Chu maneuvered it around the tight corner behind them. Maybe they shouldn't have all the SID out here, but Zhao Yunlan wasn't enough of a hypocrite to tell them it was too dangerous to come along. Knowing what they were getting into, they had chosen to join their chief. All of them, prepared to give their best. Even Sang Zan had bought a towering stack of books, and he'd last seen Wang Zheng with a pen, a notepad, and an entire spread of sticky notes of various sizes.

They were all here to help. To get Shen Wei back.

And to hold the Hallows, because apparently Zhao Yunlan was not trusted with them. Lin Jing had said something about not putting all your Hallows in one basket and handed them out to Zhu Hong, Da Qing and Xiao Guo. (Zhao Yunlan had tried to protest that Da Qing had lost his memory from touching the Hallows before so why was he allowed one now, and Da Qing had stuck his tongue out and said "Because you can't bully me into giving it up.")

The cars were climbing, finally. It seemed like the mountains had been further away from the city than usual—that traffic had been the most hopeless snarl, that the damaged roads had slowed them to an intolerable crawl—but Lin Jing did say they were getting closer. To what, they didn't know. Zhao Yunlan had seen Lin Jing scan the landscape with his dark energy detector, but all he'd told Zhu Hong was to keep following the road. Keep going up.

They crossed a bridge over a raging river, took hairpin curves up through a forest where the branches of winter trees made the clouds above seem shot through with cracks. There were scatterings of evergreens and bamboo, but the overall impression of bare branches and withered leaves was creepy and oppressive. And with that dense undergrowth it would take forever if they had to hike anywhere.

There had been no other cars in either direction. That was good. If there had been more people than expected out here, that would have been another worry. That, and the road was now little more than a bumpy dirt track, and Zhao Yunlan wasn't sure they could have let another car pass without going over the edge. The marker for Qingxi village was behind them, and everything from here on until the road ran out should be nothing but wilderness.

"Ah! Up ahead, there's a turn—take a left," Lin Jing pointed.

"What? Into the forest?" Zhu Hong demanded.

"No, it's—there's a road. There, see?"

It really wasn't a road. More like a trail carved into the forest by loggers or hunters or whoever drove big trucks out here. But the Jeep managed it. Barely.

"Are we getting close?" Zhao Yunlan couldn't stop the question from escaping, though he knew Lin Jing had no new information to give him.

Lin Jing scratched the back of his head. "Well. Distance-wise? Yeah, we're kind of close."

Zhao Yunlan's heart sped up. He couldn't help it, not even seeing Lin Jing's chagrined expression. "But the terrain out here is really bad. I mean. You remember from when we found the Awl, right? We're not too far away from those caves—lots of sheer rock faces and steep hills and...it looks like the GPS is pretty far from the trail."

"But you're still getting a signal?"

"Yes," Lin Jing nodded sharply. "Yes, and I have the location saved—and on the paper map too, just in case."

Zhao Yunlan hadn't even realized Lin Jing had bought a Haixing Ordinance Survey Map along. "Can I see?"

"Oh, sure. Of course." Lin Jing hurried to fish it out and hand it over, and Zhao Yunlan unfolded it between himself and the sleeping Da Qing.

Lin Jing had marked the spot with a bold X. Zhao Yunlan touched it with his fingertips. Looked out the window, and tried to orient himself—to see if he could look in Shen Wei's direction. "We're coming, baby. Hang on."

There were fireworks of pain in Shen Wei's chest. He curled around them, tried to keep them there. Keep them contained, keep them safe where they wouldn't hurt anyone. They were silent, but he could see them flash before his eyes—light and dark. Dark and light. A thunderstorm of power, straining to come unleashed. Aching to burst free from the vessel that was his skin and flesh and will.

The sparks that had been there each time he dared reach for his power had burst into a conflagration. And the only method he had to contain it was to apply more dark energy—try to ring it in, to hold it back. But he couldn't do it with brute force. Dark energy had never been meant to extinguish its opposite. Wielding it without finesse would turn it into an accelerant. Would rush the inevitable—no. He shouldn't think of it like that.There had to be something he could do—he had to find some way to survive this. He had promised.

Wherever his touch wasn't quite deft enough, where his defenses weren't carefully shored up, cells fried and popped as the light energy solidified from amorphous power to force acting on everything around it.

Shen Wei couldn't spare anything to heal the damage. Couldn't do anything but try to hold what he could of the battleground that was his body. Twisting energy into barriers, into loops and bubbles and carefully woven containers. Holding on.

At one point it hadn't been so bad. He had walked, then. Had relied on long-dormant instincts to find the right direction though the sun was hidden behind an opaque veil. Not powers—he couldn't risk deploying any power, no matter how small—but he could feel the energy of Dragon City on the currents in the wind, and he had tried to distance himself from it.

Because he had to. All of this—this inside him—it wasn't safe.

Then Shen Wei had stopped, because the landscape was getting more inhospitable, and Zhao Yunlan. Zhao Yunlan would be coming.

Zhao Yunlan would come.

Shen Wei had chosen to stop. He had not chosen to curl up in a fetal position on the hard ground. That simply followed naturally—that alignment of his body so that he was wrapped around the center of the inferno, trying to hold it in with his arms and his ribcage and the weight of the promise in his heart. Survive. Somehow.

Hold on.

Somehow. Because he had to. Wait for Zhao Yunlan. Because he wanted to.

Hold on.

He could hold on.

"Gege?"

Shen Wei gasped. He couldn't do this. Not now.

He pushed.

Tried to.

"What are you doing?" His little brother's voice. Shen Wei recognized it. That tone of fascinated frustration when Shen Wei used his powers like his didi couldn't.

Shen Wei wanted to tell him. Wanted to explain, and reassure, and—talk. But the energies. All he could do was tense, and try not to lose any of the thousands of filaments of power he was holding on to as tightly as he could.

"What's—glowy strings? What is that? What's happening?"

A few hundred thousand cells evaporated, neurons signalling desperate danger as they went, and Shen Wei did all he could to stop the flare-up before it could do more damage. The pain was significant enough to affect his breathing. Cold sweat beaded on his brow, disconcertingly ticklish where it rolled down his nose. He forgot that his mind had been invaded until Ye Zun spoke again. Or had Ye Zun been speaking all along? "Why won't you talk to me? I'm not even doing anything—you can't just let me in and then ignore me, that's not fair!"

Let him in? Shen Wei hadn't. Shen Wei wouldn't. Would he? It was all dissolving into white noise and pain and those shredding coils of dark energy holding everything together.

Holding on.

They found him after sundown.

The drone did, at least. A close thing, as Shen Wei was nearly invisible where he lay half-hidden by the branches of a leafless tree in the gloom. But the green of his overcoat—Zhao Yunlan didn't miss it on Lin Jing's tablet, not in this wintery landscape. Not when his last memory of Shen Wei for twenty-five days had been of him in that coat.

Zhao Yunlan's heart caught, squeezed between hope and despair as Lin Jing carefully maneuvered the drone closer, closer. Shen Wei looked impossibly small on the screen. And he was so still, was not reacting at all to the obnoxious whining of the machine descending on him from the skies—

There was a burst of static on the tablet's screen, and everything went dark.

They had lost Cong Bo's drone, but it had not sacrificed itself in vain. What took it out had been uncontained dark energy. Zhao Yunlan had seen Shen Wei direct it at cameras before. And if there was dark energy, then Shen Wei was alive.

Shen Wei was alive, and they had found him.

Zhao Yunlan clung to that as they left the cars behind and scrambled for him. Lin Jing started directing them based on the footage the drone had recorded before its demise, but then he grew unsure—and Sang Zan stepped in, Wang Zheng checking the tablet and relating landmarks to him with names in a mostly-forgotten language. They weren't confused by the superficial changes—trees felled and grown, rocks tumbled and cracked. This was their land, and they remembered the shape of it well. The tall cliffs were shining darkly with half-melted icicles, unscalable. Together, Sang Zan and Wang Zheng navigated the party around those obstacles by trails Zhao Yunlan couldn't see, their flashlight beams cutting a path for them through the deepening darkness.

They were both wearing hiking boots and warm jackets, and Sang Zan had a heavy backpack on. Zhao Yunlan still hadn't had the time to ask for details on how they had both gone from energy to this. He had missed so much when he was trapped in Dixing.

And if night falling on the mountain made the memories of his weeks in darkness come hard and fast— well. Zhao Yunlan knew where he was, and what he was doing. He wasn't going to let it get to him. Just like he wasn't going to let Ye Zun get to him. That scrabbling pressure on his mind feeling for cracks through which to slip in—Zhao Yunlan would keep ignoring it. His team were worried enough without their chief jumping at shadows. Even if the shadow in this case was Ye Zun, who Zhao Yunlan could feel as clearly as if he had been lurking just outside the bright cone of his flashlight's beam.

For the last bit, Lin Jing passed Sang Zan and Wang Zheng more information based on the readings coming from his dark energy detector. It was giving him frantic beeps and whirrs, and to Zhao Yunlan each of those sounds resonated with Shen Wei's heartbeat.

Shen Wei was alive.

When Sang Zan forged their way through the final snarl of hardy bushes, Zhao Yunlan no longer needed Lin Jing's equipment to tell him where Shen Wei was. He could feel it. They could all feel it. A prickling of the skin, a strange double vision as the night around them pulsed darker, and then inverted itself. Da Qing's eyes glowed golden with it, and Xiao Guo whimpered.

Zhao Yunlan picked up the pace, coming up a small rise and onto the wide plateau between the cliffs where Shen Wei lay. For a moment he saw the scene in clear negative, like if he'd used a filter on his phone to turn the world black and white the wrong way around. The rockface above them was lined with a few trees, their branches gray skeletons against the blinding white night sky. Then he blinked it away and his flashlight illuminated Shen Wei.

Lying down, curled in a shallow hollow in the ground that Zhao Yunlan couldn't tell if he'd made or if it had been there all along, waiting to hold him like the earth cupping him in its palm. He rushed forward, only for Da Qing to grab his sleeve. "Lao Zhao!" It was a sharp warning.

"Shen Wei," Zhao Yunlan said. Couldn't say more because he was trying to get a proper look at Shen Wei. Trying to get closer.

A shadow loomed before him. "Chief Zhao." That was Lao Chu, his expression as dark as the clothes that made him blend into the night. "Hei Pao Shi warned us to be careful."

"I don't want to be careful!" Zhao Yunlan hadn't intended to say that out loud. Da Qing swatted the back of his head.

"And what would Professor Shen say if you got too close and he hurt you, huh?" Da Qing's stare was sharp with the unspoken again.

Zhao Yunlan's stomach churned, thinking of knives. Of Shen Wei's broken expression. Then he shuddered, and forced himself to relax in Da Qing's hold. He was out of breath from the hike and from his emotions and he needed so badly to make sure that Shen Wei was okay—but Shen Wei wasn't okay. And going near him now—Da Qing was right. "Fine. Give me the Dial first."

"Boss!" Lin Jing said. "You can't just—"

"I can." Zhao Yunlan set his jaw. "We're all here, and we brought the Hallows. And if anyone has a better idea for how to fix—this," he gestured with his good arm at the invisible flashing, the way the air tingled against his skin and all the way down through his lungs, "I am listening." There was a pressure against his skull as he said it, resonating with that particular nightmare frequency of Ye Zun trying to get in. Not to you! Zhao Yunlan almost snarled it out loud, but he was aware that he had already been glaring at his team. Shouting in their general direction would do absolutely nothing to help them look less anxious and pissed off.

"Zhang Shi said…" Zhao Yunlan trailed off when he thought he saw Shen Wei's head moving. He stared hard, but it was only the cold night breeze stirring hair already in disarray. Fuck. What had Zhang Shi said? Zhao Yunlan found himself furious that he hadn't paid better attention—that he had fallen asleep while Shen Wei was discussing the thing that could maybe save his life. That had been more important than a nap, and yet—

The pressure from Ye Zun increased, and Zhao Yunlan ground the heel of his hand against his temple, trying to push the intrusion away and get to the memory of everything Zhang Shi and Shen Wei had told him. But it was so hard with the dark energy making his ears feel like they were going to pop. That, and Ye Zun was scratching at his mind like Zhao Yunlan had installed some kind of catflap for evil he was now keeping cruelly locked instead of letting it roam free inside.

"Lao Zhao?" Da Qing's hand was on his elbow in its sling, and Zhu Hong had taken Lao Chu's spot right in front of him, staring at him with eyes that glowed red in the energy Shen Wei leaked. "Are you okay?"

Zhao Yunlan forced his hand down from where it had been clutching his head, swallowed down the laughter building in his throat. "I need to get to Shen Wei," he said, jaw tense. It was the shortest possible answer that didn't involve any screaming. "Give me the Dial. I know one of you has it."

Zhu Hong and Da Qing exchanged glances, the rest of his team repeating the gesture like rings on the water in their own cones of flashlight—Lao Chu, Lin Jing and Xiao Guo, with Wang Zheng and Sang Zan further out. In the silence, Zhao Yunlan could almost hear the rushed, worried arguments that had happened whenever he had been out of earshot.

"Ch-chief Zhao." The furthest flashlight drew nearer as Sang Zan approached, the easy confidence with which he'd lead the way replaced now by an apprehensive insistence. "Brush first?" He looked at Wang Zheng, who nodded.

"Sang Zan has found mentions of the Hallows in ancient texts," she explained, with no little pride. "Taking what they say together with what happened when Wang Xiangyang freed Ye Zun from the Sky Pillar, the Merit Brush should be able to conjure protection."

"How?" Zhao Yunlan would be happy for there to be protection, but—time. They didn't have much of it left. "Without having a repeat of what happened to that Wang guy."

Lin Jing joined their circle of people standing together while Shen Wei lay unconscious on the ground. "Given that the Merit Brush is loaded with dark energy, I don't think it'll disintegrate anyone. Probably."

"Okay, good." Good enough. "But how?"

Lin Jing looked pained. "It...doesn't really seem like any of what it does should work—I haven't been able to replicate it with any—"

"Circle," Sang Zan interrupted, and put his backpack down to pull a book from a side pocket. "For guarding."

The illustration was old. Ancient. All detail was lost in the small picture that took up less than half a page, but Zhao Yunlan was drawn to what was written over the stylized people in their robes: Brush of Virtue. Encircle. Suppress. In the margins, someone making notes with a fine-tipped brush had added a Lord Guardian?, pointing to the use of the same character for suppress as in the title Zhao Yunlan now held. Squinting, he could barely make out what was probably meant to be going on in the illustration: one person, drawn with stylized bolts of lightning coming out of them, in the middle of a wobbly ring. Several more people were standing outside the ring. The lightning didn't reach them. And the bulkiest person—the one in the nicest robes, maybe?—was holding what could generously be interpreted as a brush.

"This is the best version of that image we've found, but it's in other books as well," Wang Zheng told him.

It wasn't exactly a step-by-step manual—it wasn't even conclusive—but he'd take it. "Good work," Zhao Yunlan said, handing the book back. He almost added a joke about bonuses, but he wasn't paying Sang Zan. Was he? Had anyone updated that contract now that Sang Zan and Wang Zheng were both corporeal enough to need things like new shoes? He should know this. He was their boss, and he should be catching up on details like which of his staff were embodied and who was actually getting paid, not standing out here with the living ghost of his worst enemy trying to burst into his brain and his lover huddled in a hollow making dark energy lightning. The air he sucked in was cold and fresh and he wished it would clear his mind and not just sear his lungs.

"Okay. Fine. So—give me the Brush and Dial, and I'll make the circle."

"Why the Dial?" Zhu Hong said without missing a beat.

"Look. If this suppressive circle thing works—" he tapped the illustration on the page Sang Zan was still displaying for him. "It's going to stop stuff getting in. Which means I need to be on the inside, not the outside."

"But Professor Shen isn't…safe…?" Lin Jing's protest withered at Zhao Yunlan's look.

"Which is why I need the Dial. To fix him." Which Zhao Yunlan was going to do. He was. And if he didn't—he was glad there would be a barrier. Hoped there would be a barrier. But he was going to be inside of it, with Shen Wei, where he belonged. No matter what. And if his team didn't like that—

"Here." Xiao Guo popped up out of nowhere, a familiar SID bag in hand. The shape was all wrong for the Brush, so it must be the Dial. He looked entirely determined, just like he'd been when he had helped stop Ye Zun.

"Thanks," Zhao Yunlan said, taking it and feeling the familiar weight of the Dial under the black cloth. He pulled his arm from the sling to have both arms free, looped the strings of the Sundial's bag around his left wrist.

"Go to him," Zhu Hong said, with the shortness of someone trying not to break. She held the Brush in her hand, and Zhao Yunlan felt the coldness of her skin when he took it from her. He wished he could hug her warm, but that would not be a kindness. Not now. Maybe not ever. So he nodded, and gave her the best smile he could before he turned away and his flashlight beam fell on Shen Wei.

The pulsing was still there, inverting the colors of the night. His skin prickled with goosebumps, and he felt a vibration, like a sound he couldn't quite make out. It joined Ye Zun in trying to distract him from Shen Wei.

Nothing could distract Zhao Yunlan from Shen Wei.

He wouldn't let it.

Chapter Text

Having grabbed the Brush, Zhao Yunlan found himself with his hands full. He left the flashlight on a rock, mingling with the other beams trailed on him as he made his way to Shen Wei's side. He was curled up so tightly Zhao Yunlan couldn't see his face. But this close he noticed that the tense shoulders moved with tremors—short gasps entirely unlike anything a sleeping man would make. Zhao Yunlan wanted to cover Shen Wei's body with his own, wanted to comfort him and tell him everything would be fine. But he held the Brush, and he needed to use it before he could do anything.

Use it how? The illustration had not been particularly helpful. Was the circle drawn on the ground? If so he was in trouble, what with not having brought a bucket of ink. Hopefully it would be enough to trace it in the air. It had better work even if the circle wasn't crafted with geometric precision, because the ground was uneven, and he needed to walk around Shen Wei in the dark. And his hands were shaking. Maybe he should have worn gloves.

Well. Too late for that. He swept the Brush up from his side, holding it out like he was standing before a blank hanging scroll. He fought to calm his breaths. They were coming ragged, in time with the flashing pulses of power. He would have tried to clear his mind, but he was too busy shoving back against Ye Zun's persistent attempts. Wouldn't do to accidentally unbar that mental catflap.

He was as prepared as he was going to get. He looked in the direction of his team. Saw nothing but the sharp brightness of the flashlights they were all pointing straight at him. "Okay," he said, "If this doesn't work, you shouldn't stay."

"Neither should you," Da Qing's voice rang sardonically in the dark, and there was a mumble that sounded suspiciously like Zhu Hong saying, "But we're all idiots here."

Zhao Yunlan drew the Brush through the winter air with intent. There was no resistance, but as he moved, the brush's bristles seemed to bend at the tip, then lie flat as if he was drawing it across something solid. Halfway around the circumference of his circle, looking into the night, he thought he saw something in the air. It could have been nothing but a few stray snow crystals picked up by the flashlights, but as he kept turning they swirled thicker, starting to glow blue.

The soundless vibrations that he had felt before intensified, until he could hear something like a high ringing sound, loud enough that it should have been shaking icicles off the cliffs—unless it was all in his head. He couldn't tell. The others' flashlight beams criss-crossing the darkness were coming back in view. There he saw that what had been empty air when he began drawing the circle had solidified to what looked like a fat, three-dimensional ink stroke. It was just hanging there, waiting for him to close it. He tried to steady his hand, to make sure he swept the Brush around in a smooth arc that closed the gap.

The end of the circle met the beginning, and there was a jolt up Zhao Yunlan's arm, as if the Brush had turned into a live wire. He took a quick step back and saw that despite his wobbly aim, the circle had merged as smoothly as if it had always been an unbroken whole.

And now there was a really big magic hula hoop hanging in the air around him. He had no better way of describing it. The blue glow was still there, making his mid-air calligraphy phosphoresce in the way some dark energy did. He didn't know if it was doing anything else, but that seemed like a good sign.

Zhao Yunlan put the Brush down on the ground, and turned to Shen Wei. Relief and apprehension had a tug-of-war over whether his chest should relax or tighten, with the result that he felt like he was slowly being strangled by an indecisive python. He sank down next to Shen Wei, who was curled up with his knees to his chest and his arms locked tight around his head. The earth was cold and damp seeped into Zhao Yunlan's jeans as he leaned over to finally, finally touch that trembling shoulder. "Shen Wei."

The reaction was instantaneous, if minute. Shen Wei's breath caught, the rhythm of his shaky gasp interrupted by Zhao Yunlan's presence. "Hey baby. I'm here. I'm here now." Zhao Yunlan smiled, because Shen Wei was here, and Shen Wei was alive. Smiled and wished everything could hurt less. He gripped Shen Wei's shoulder more tightly, to reassure both of them that this was real. That they weren't going to get separated this time.

Shen Wei's head moved. Only a slight shift from where it had been buried in his arms, but enough that Zhao Yunlan could slide a hand down to cup his cheek, and saw his long eyelashes fluttering.

"That's it. Can you talk to me? Is it safe?"

Shen Wei's head tilted into his palm. "Yunlan?" It was a raw whisper.

Hope and despair swelled, crushing him further as he tried to believe it would all be all right now. "Yeah. Yeah, it's me."

"Not. Safe." Shen Wei's face was tight with pain, his eyes screwed shut.

"It's okay. I did a, uh. Circle of suppression. So it's okay, it's just…" Zhao Yunlan drew his thumb across Shen Wei's cheekbone. "It's just me." And he knew Shen Wei wanted him out of here, knew Shen Wei wanted him safe, but they'd had this conversation already. Zhao Yunlan was not leaving.

Shen Wei shook his head, and made a small noise that drove a shiver of pain through Zhao Yunlan's bone and marrow. "No. No."

"Look," he said, and shook the Dial out of the bag. "All you have to do is hold on here, and do the thing you and Zhang Shi talked about. The transfer?"

The Dial pulsed with light that seemed to absorb the color of the ring of power around them, glowing cold blue instead of its normal white or gold. It throbbed like a living thing in Zhao Yunlan's hand, and he squeezed it hard.

A spike of power shoved like an icepick against his forehead, and he could practically feel Ye Zun's tendrils of dark energy reaching out to try and snatch it. "Fuck you, no," he said out loud, and then hastily added, "Not you, Xiao Wei! That was—"

"—Ye Zun," Shen Wei rasped.

"Yeah," Zhao Yunlan agreed unhappily. He couldn't imagine what it must take Shen Wei to keep him out as well as contain all of that energy. "But—"

"No."

Zhao Yunlan blinked. "What?"

It had been barely audible, but now Shen Wei tipped his chin up so his mouth wasn't muffled by the fabric of his coat. Said, very clearly, "No." Shuddered, eyes still closed, and Zhao Yunlan brushed his hand over Shen Wei's dirt-matted hair.

"Okay," Zhao Yunlan said, feeling increasingly helpless. Shen Wei was here, and talking, but was he processing any of what Zhao Yunlan was saying? He didn't know. Couldn't tell, from Shen Wei's agonized expression and quivering body. "Okay, baby. No Ye Zun. Now come on and hold the Dial."

"No," Shen Wei said again, laboriously blinking his eyes open to stare at Zhao Yunlan, gaze burning with intent. "It's—for you—" An uncontrolled moan interrupted him, and for the first time Zhao Yunlan noticed that there was a dark smear on the cuff of his jacket that hadn't been there this morning. As if he'd been wiping blood from his mouth. "Dangerous," he finished weakly.

"Shen Wei. I know. But you agreed, remember?" Zhao Yunlan spoke coaxingly, and tugged at the arm Shen Wei held curled up in front of his body.

Shen Wei made another miserable sound. Feeling like shit for not being able to do anything at all that wouldn't make Shen Wei feel worse before he felt better, Zhao Yunlan took the hand he'd freed. There was blood among the dirt smeared over Shen Wei's palm, brighter than the smudge across his knuckles.

Zhao Yunlan brought the Dial to Shen Wei, and wrapped Shen Wei's dirty fingers over his own. Shen Wei realized what he was doing and tried to pull away. "Yunlan. Zhao Yunlan."

"Shen Wei," Zhao Yunlan said sharply, catching Shen Wei's wrist. When Shen Wei yanked weakly, Zhao Yunlan kept his fingers wrapped around it but let Shen Wei tuck the arm back close to his body. He wasn't going to hurt Shen Wei more than he needed—was already hurting Shen Wei more than his heart could handle. "You promised. Do you remember?"

Searching Shen Wei's eyes for an answer, Zhao Yunlan saw the memory come back. Saw the pain it caused, as Shen Wei shook his head weakly, lips forming a silent, "No."

"You promised me you'd survive. You promised me. Are you going to break that promise?"

It would have hurt less to press the Dial into Shen Wei's hand with bruising force. To hold him still and hope that one will was enough to work it. But Zhao Yunlan couldn't do this alone. Couldn't—he didn't know if the Dial would allow it, and he couldn't risk damaging Shen Wei worse. Shen Wei's eyes were huge and wounded, shining blue in the light of the magic calligraphy around them. "No," Shen Wei answered finally, in a whisper of a word. "I'm not."

Zhao Yunlan held on to Shen Wei's wrist, to steady and guide him as he reached for the Dial. Zhao Yunlan offered it to him, waiting as Shen Wei's fingers tightened convulsively around the embossed metal. He wanted to say it wouldn't hurt, there was nothing to be afraid of—but it wasn't true, and they both knew it. There was so much to fear. The last time they'd both held onto this Hallow, it had started the process that was killing Shen Wei now. And the last time Zhao Yunlan had been around active Hallows Dixing had come crashing down over them, and the gateway to Haixing had closed and left him behind with Ye Zun. So instead he threw his mind back to the conversation between Shen Wei and Zhang Shi and said, "Remember, you're trying to pour it all into me. Everything you can't hold inside anymore."

It would do. It wasn't a ritual—they weren't even standing up, like last time—but it was too late for anything except to try and wrestle the raw power of the Hallow to do their bidding. "You can do it. Come on, baby. On my count, okay?"

"Yes," Shen Wei said, with the air of a prisoner agreeing to a blindfold before the execution squad. His fingers around the Dial were cold when Zhao Yunlan wrapped his own around them, their trembling more pronounced.

"And then—and then it'll all be over, and we can go home." Zhao Yunlan smiled. Shen Wei—Shen Wei tried to smile back, but there was so much fear in the expression that Zhao Yunlan regretted his own attempt.

"I love you," Zhao Yunlan said, and when that made Shen Wei gasp he tightened his fist around Shen Wei's fingers. "Three, two—now."

Zhao Yunlan closed his eyes, and fell into a storm.

Zhao Yunlan should never have come. But Shen Wei had promised, and Zhao Yunlan had promised. Now the simple, shattering truth was that if he had given himself up to the maelstrom tearing at him, he would have left Zhao Yunlan with a lie. And that would have been one lie too much. One betrayal he could not even contemplate.

Instead, he had done as he had sworn he would. He had survived.

Maybe that had been a mistake.

The moment Zhao Yunlan's will made the Sundial light up, it was too much. When it had all been Shen Wei's to hold, it had seemed like he could wrap all he was around the pain of energies tearing themselves apart. But to protect Zhao Yunlan as well—he could not do it, and so Zhao Yunlan had to suffer what he could not contain.

"I'm sorry," Shen Wei tried to say, but around them winds had come whipping down from the mountain, howling too loud for the sounds that left his lips to carry, and besides Zhao Yunlan was not listening to him anymore.

The Sundial of Longevity pulsed in his hand, and around him the earth pounded, as if Hallow and ground shared the same heartbeat. Dirt and rocks trembled, then rose, snapped up and tossed around by the furious gale. Zhao Yunlan's eyes were closed tight, his pale face glowing blue with power in the night, the gusts whipping his hair into a messy tangle.

Zhao Yunlan's warm hand was closed over Shen Wei's around the Dial, and that point of contact was the eye of the storm they found themselves in. Shen Wei leaned into that—to the unspoken promise of calm, to the anchor that was Zhao Yunlan—and closed his eyes, as he hadn't been able to bring himself to do on his count, still hoping that maybe there would be some other way. Any other way.

There was no other way. Inside—in his mind—was as chaotic as the night had been. A thunderstorm of light energy and dark, the lightning strikes tearing through his body. Their shockwaves threatened to tear down all of his remaining defenses. But there was another presence there now, too. A soul burning so warm and bright that Shen Wei could feel it through the searing pain, could hear his voice over the roaring rumble of boiling blood.

"Shen Wei!"

"Zhao Yunlan."

Their hands were touching. Their eyes were closed.

"I'm here."

Shen Wei didn't have to reach for him. Zhao Yunlan was already there.

"Finally!"

That wasn't Zhao Yunlan. Shen Wei almost opened his eyes in alarm, but he still had enough sense to know this was not a threat he would be able to see. Ye Zun had taken advantage of their lowered defenses, of their open minds, and now he was here.

But not here. In Dixing. And as Shen Wei had told Zhao Yunlan, Ye Zun could do no harm. Zhao Yunlan growled something. Ye Zun laughed. Shen Wei ignored him. Instead, he focused on doing what Zhao Yunlan had bid him do. He took one of the carefully protected pockets of light energy, wrapped in his own like a pearl in an oyster's shell. It was a very small amount, but it was volatile after its time spent in Shen Wei's body.

Forcing himself to pay Ye Zun no heed, no matter how loud he got, Shen Wei said, "Zhao Yunlan. Are you ready to begin?"

"Do it," Zhao Yunlan said. No hesitation. And he felt—open. Trusting. If Shen Wei had wanted to do this, it would have pleased him. As it was, it made him despair. Shen Wei should have come up with something else, some other solution. A way to keep his promise to Zhao Yunlan without causing him more harm—because this would cause harm. As gentle as he tried to make it, pushing pure dark energy against the light of Zhao Yunlan was like pressing a bruise into flesh.

But it worked.

When Shen Wei withdrew, the dark energy had dissolved, scattered on the howling wind he was ignoring as much as he was ignoring Ye Zun's violent tantrum. The light stayed. To Shen Wei's senses, it was indistinguishable from everything else already in Zhao Yunlan—and those energies were all still in balance. Still radiating the sweet, solid warmth that Shen Wei could always find comfort in, marred only by the imprint of Shen Wei's own dark energy.

"How do you feel?" Shen Wei needed to be sure no unnoticed damage had been done.

"Fine." There was a confident, calming quality to Zhao Yunlan's reply that reassured Shen Wei, even as he spoke without a voice—or maybe he was speaking with his voice, too, and having it stolen by the chaos outside. "Keep going."

Shen Wei didn't think he hesitated to follow Zhao Yunlan's encouragement, but it took him a moment to grab onto the next pearl of light energy. A moment in which he saw white sparks and didn't know if they were coming from within or without, and tasted blood.

"You're not done, are you?" Zhao Yunlan asked.

Ye Zun—Ye Zun was laughing. Shen Wei didn't want to listen to him.

"No," he answered Zhao Yunlan.

"It's fine. Come on, baby. You've got this."

Ye Zun disagreed.

Shen Wei forced another painful smudge of dark energy onto Zhao Yunlan's light, and returned more of it, like pouring a teacup in the ocean.

"Okay, I definitely felt that, but it's fine—it's good—it doesn't hurt. You're doing great, Xiao Wei." Zhao Yunlan's encouragement spurred Shen Wei on, even as his grasp started to slip. The taste of blood grew as loud to his senses as the storm, though he hardly noticed when wind-whipped debris left a scratch over his eyebrow that trickled wetly down the side of his face. He tried to focus. If he got enough of the light energy out, the rest should be easy enough to manage. He wouldn't be overflowing anymore—and Zhao Yunlan wasn't, either. He'd been so afraid it would destabilize Zhao Yunlan's energies, this transfer, but Zhao Yunlan was as steady and solid as a mountain.

All Shen Wei needed to do was to keep going, just like he had been.

He was more startled than frightened to find that between one careful breath and the next, he couldn't.

Couldn't shift any energy. Couldn't move. Couldn't hear anything over the roaring of the maelstrom, which was sucking him in, pulling him under.

"Yunlan!" It was a warning, and more. There was so much he wanted to say—apologize for—but he had no more time.

All he had was one last, frantic hope.

Hold on.

Chapter Text

Zhao Yunlan had kept his eyes shut, to focus on the thing between him and Shen Wei—the Dial, and the energy transfer, and the fact that he could talk to Shen Wei without shouting into the vortex of power around them. But now he opened them wide.

"Shen Wei!" the name ripped out of him. Shen Wei had slumped over, unmoving, his arm outstretched toward Zhao Yunlan, towards the Dial they held together. Zhao Yunlan blinked against the stinging dirt in the frantic air, making sure he didn't let go of the Dial. He couldn't break their connection.

Shen Wei—Shen Wei was hemorrhaging uncontrolled power, which meant he was still alive. Possibly still aware. He just. Wasn't answering.

Leaning over Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan carefully rolled him over on his side with his free hand. There was so much blood he felt a moment's absolute despair before rallying. Shen Wei's fingers were still curled around the Dial, holding on tightly. More tightly than anyone unconscious should be able to. So he hadn't passed out, he'd just—what?

The obvious answer was written in the howling wind and flickering world and levitating rocks around Zhao Yunlan. In the trickles of blood from Shen Wei's mouth and nose. The two clashing energies, tearing their vessel apart—but no. No, that couldn't be. Shen Wei would be fine. He'd started ridding himself of the overflow—Zhao Yunlan had felt it, had known something was happening. Shen Wei just needed a break. Some rest. They could try again—Shen Wei had to try again, had to wake up, had to—

"Gege?"

Zhao Yunlan's fear twisted into rage, and he turned on Ye Zun's voice in his mind. "Shut up. Don't you dare. Stay the fuck away from him."

"Why isn't he answering?" Ye Zun sounded confused. Angry. Ye Zun, who had done so much damage to both of them that Zhao Yunlan didn't know if the pain would ever stop—Ye Zun dared sound like he was put out to be ignored?

"Because he fucking can't," Zhao Yunlan snarled, terror and grief he didn't want to feel closing his throat, leaving him with nothing but this mental connection that he didn't know how to break without risking not being able to hear Shen Wei again.

Ye Zun startled. He could feel it—like Zhao Yunlan's emotions had hit him hard enough to hurt. Good. "Can't?"

"He can't! He's not talking, he's not answering, he's not—He can't." Zhao Yunlan was wiping blood from Shen Wei's face with his fingers, rubbing it off on his jeans, trying to get Shen Wei clean, trying—he didn't know what he was trying to do, just as he didn't know why he was telling Ye Zun anything at all.

"But I haven't done anything?"

It was the most ridiculous statement he could have made. Zhao Yunlan barked out a laugh. "You haven't done anything?"

"Now. I haven't done anything now," Ye Zun huffed. "He was right there and then he wasn't, and I didn't even do anything yet!"

"It's not you! It's not about you, not everything is about you." Because Ye Zun hadn't had to do anything at all. It was all Zhao Yunlan. Zhao Yunlan's own energy killing Shen Wei right in front of his eyes.

"It should be! I was going to show him—destroy him. Me!"

Zhao Yunlan tried to ignore Ye Zun's flare of temper, but he wasn't that far removed from pain in a dark cell yet. Hunching his shoulders, he leaned closer to Shen Wei. Moved Shen Wei's hand and the Dial in it to his lips. "Baby?"

"Wake up, gege. Wake up! You can't do this. I'm the one who's going to kill you, you can't—"

He had been hoping that pressing a kiss to Shen Wei's cold skin might get a reaction, but there was nothing. Absolutely nothing, as Shen Wei's grip slackened in his hand, and his body went limp.

Zhao Yunlan was close enough to see where an exhalation should have been followed by an inhalation and wasn't. Was followed by more blood trickling from Shen Wei's lips, but not by another breath.

The air around them went still. Pebbles peppered the ground, dirt rained down like the last grains of sand in an hourglass.

"No. No, no, no—fuck—" Zhao Yunlan roughly shoved Shen Wei over on his back. His connection with the Dial broke, but there were blue motes of energy dancing all around them. He couldn't tell where they were coming from as he scooped more blood out of Shen Wei's mouth with his fingers, feeling for an obstruction. Finding nothing, he locked his lips over Shen Wei's and breathed air into his lungs.

Zhao Yunlan tried to keep inhaling and exhaling in the tempo he'd been drilled in, but it made him dizzy as that practice never had, his world spinning even in the dead calm after the storm. His mind was filling with static and disjointed impressions—the bitter metallic tang on his tongue, Shen Wei's mouth slack against his, the burning ache in his chest.

The count for breathing was up. Zhao Yunlan sat up with a gasp, placed his hands over Shen Wei's sternum and pressed down, hard enough that he felt something crack in one of them.

"No!" Ye Zun's voice rang in Zhao Yunlan's mind, too loud to ignore even as he was staring at Shen Wei's face, watching for any reaction as he served as Shen Wei's heartbeat, his own matted hair getting in his eyes as he wondered if the fucking barrier was going to let his team through. They had brought first-aid equipment. They could help. He just had to keep this up until they could come and help.

"No, you can't do this, you can't leave me here!"

It could have been Zhao Yunlan's own words, but he heard them in Ye Zun's voice, loud and shrill, and then, "Not again, you can't leave me alone again. No, no, no!"

With that crescendo of fury, Ye Zun reached for Shen Wei. Zhao Yunlan could feel it—feel his emotions rather than see anything, and with the part of himself not frantically counting the beat to compress Shen Wei's chest he screamed at Ye Zun to stop.

Light flared behind Zhao Yunlan's eyelids—No. Light was flaring in his mind.

Zhao Yunlan could see—he hadn't been able to see Shen Wei through the Dial before, not with his eyes closed, but now it was as if a spotlight had been turned on in his perception, and when he looked down he could see...energies? A thunderstorm in miniature, black shot through with white—Shen Wei. Shen Wei's energies. And the storm was still raging on, which gave Zhao Yunlan a startling shock of hope. When everything had fallen silent around him he had thought—

"Gege!" Ye Zun was flinging himself at Shen Wei. It wasn't like watching the scene play out in a movie—more like an artist's abstract impression of shapes and movement. But Zhao Yunlan could perceive it now, in energy and intent, how Ye Zun across from him reached for Shen Wei, and how a bolt of light energy shot out.

Ye Zun hissed. Caught it.

Caught it.

"What did you do?" Zhao Yunlan blurted the question out loud. He had felt—had thought he felt—Shen Wei twitch.

"What's this?" Ye Zun held it in one hand. Held the energy that had been inside Shen Wei in one hand—in his other was something that shone too brightly for Zhao Yunlan to focus on.

Ye Zun squeezed the energy as if he was trying to strangle a snake. There was such avarice in the way he regarded it. "All this time, he had this?" That familiar anger, and a flash of brightness. The energy Ye Zun had been holding was gone, and the brightness—something Ye Zun had taken into his hand in Dixing, maybe, for it to show up like this—flared even more intensely. "He had it and he didn't share?"

"It's killing him!" Zhao Yunlan shouted, because Shen Wei was limp and lifeless under his hands and Ye Zun was ranting at him and nobody had come to help.

"No," Ye Zun said again. His voice was level now. Almost reasonable. "No. Gege can't die until I kill him. But he can't have it. It's mine. It should have been mine."

Zhao Yunlan stared, uncomprehending, even as he kept pressing down on Shen Wei's chest in a rhythm that seemed too slow compared with his own heartbeat. Wondering if he should chase Ye Zun out of his head because he must be losing it—he was, he was losing it, but he must be losing it more because it sounded like Ye Zun was acting like a jealous sibling over light energy and—

And Ye Zun was doing something. Opening his mouth—Zhao Yunlan felt a shock of pure, instinctive terror at that—and drew the light energy to himself.

Inhaled it.

Zhao Yunlan had no better way of explaining what was happening. He could see white streaks in the dark of Shen Wei's energy twisting and writhing, rising. Rising out of the dark and then pouring down into Ye Zun's wide open mouth, though Ye Zun shouldn't have been able to touch it at all. Zhao Yunlan had forgotten, again, that Ye Zun wasn't here—except he was. He wasn't touching Shen Wei's body, but he was going after his energy.

How?

Ye Zun was pulling strands of light out of Shen Wei, one arm flung wide in invitation, mouth open until he had to pause, and exhale—an unexpectedly human side-effect of sucking so much air in. At least until Zhao Yunlan saw the cloud of darkness on the breath Ye Zun expelled, so dense it obscured the brilliance in Ye Zun's other hand for a moment.

What?

That confusion was a tiny thing in Zhao Yunlan next to the dread and the panic and the pain that was starting to make him slow down, tiring him out quicker than he should be. He looked at Shen Wei in the sharp, blue-tinged light—at his pale, bloody face and the tumultuous riot of light and dark that was his energy, and he saw some of those bright white lightning bolts flicker out and disappear as Ye Zun tugged them free of Shen Wei.

Shen Wei moaned.

Zhao Yunlan froze, resting his weight on sore palms and aching arms. "Shen Wei?"

Shen Wei's eyelashes fluttered, as if caught in an invisible breeze.

Trembling, Zhao Yunlan reached out to rest his fingertips on Shen Wei's lips, right under his nose.

A weak puff of air against his skin filled him with jubilant relief. The small, pained groan that followed was the most beautiful sound he had ever heard.

"Shen Wei." The name was the whisper. Zhao Yunlan didn't have enough breath left to speak as he reached for Shen Wei—sliding an arm under Shen Wei's shoulders, shifting him so he lay propped up on Zhao Yunlan's lap, cradled in the protective circle of his arms. "Xiao Wei, love?"

Shen Wei's mouth opened, but whatever word he had been about to speak turned into a gasp, and then he was being wrenched by painful-sounding coughs. But breathing. Breathing, and held close. Zhao Yunlan's heart contracted with an absolutely furious need to protect him, and he looked about for a way to make Ye Zun go away.

Ye Zun cackled. "Feel that?" Darkness trailed the words out of his mouth, as if they had been written in dissolving ink on the air. "Feel your precious, hoarded brightness drain away?"

Shen Wei's face twisted in dismay as he stifled another cough to croak, "What?"

In response, Ye Zun thrust his hand out, and made a grabbing motion, pulling back another bit of energy as neatly as a spearfisher would hook an eel. Then he grinned triumphantly and devoured it whole, more light energy flowing into him in its wake, the radiance from the object at his side making him nearly blinding to look at.

Ye Zun thought that he was stealing from Shen Wei. Zhao Yunlan blinked as he finally had enough attention to spare to put all of the very obvious pieces together. He thought that Shen Wei had—taken it? Kept it for himself? Something like that. And now Ye Zun was taking it for himself.

And saving Shen Wei doing it.

Giddy hysteria rose in Zhao Yunlan's throat, and he swallowed against it as he watched more of the light energy drain away. But it wasn't leaving Shen Wei empty—it was leaving him stronger, more whole. Able to sit up with Zhao Yunlan's arm wrapped around his shoulder, where he stared straight at his brother, then looked down at the energy sketching a sparking arc of power between them.

"How is he doing that?" Zhao Yunlan said in a low voice, trying to get the answers he needed to understand what was really happening, and what he should do about it.

"I don't know!" Shen Wei exclaimed in distress. "He shouldn't be able to—"

"But I am! Because I have more power than you could ever have dreamed of, Hei Pao Shi."

Zhao Yunlan studied Ye Zun—what he could perceive of him. He still didn't know if he was seeing, or sensing, or what. Though that thing Ye Zun held—looking at it was like staring directly into a—Oh. Zhao Yunlan got it. Mentally tweaked the last word in that sentence, replacing flashlight with Lantern. "He's using the Hallows," Zhao Yunlan told Shen Wei, who almost choked on another gasp.

"He has the Lantern," Shen Wei managed.

"And we have the Dial—" And the Brush, left inside the circle that must still be active to throw this blue light on them. And Da Qing had the Awl.

"—they are connected. Their energies—"

"That's right," Ye Zun said softly, sounding too close. He was standing over them, and only the fact that he was all glowy and incorporeal kept Zhao Yunlan from flinching so hard Shen Wei would have felt it. "The Lantern. Dixing's Lantern. Which you broke—sabotaged. Took its Wick and hid it inside gege, to keep it from us in Dixing forever."

Zhao Yunlan stared, speechless.

"No," Shen Wei managed. "No, that wasn't—"

"Because Dixing was mine, and you couldn't stand the thought of letting me make it better!"

Shen Wei was shaking his head in desperate denial. "No. No, we didn't have the Wick—we don't have the—"

"Stop lying to me!" Ye Zun snapped. "That's all you ever do!" At the way he raised his hand, Zhao Yunlan twisted so he could shield Shen Wei from the blast of dark energy with his body. It hit like a slap instead of the blow he had been expecting, and when Zhao Yunlan looked up Ye Zun was scowling, furious, tearing handfuls of light energy loose from Shen Wei and swallowing them down.

Shen Wei struggled free of Zhao Yunlan's protection, sat up on his knees and reached a pleading hand toward his brother. "Didi, stop!"

When Ye Zun laughed this time, it was with an eruption of dark energy leaving his mouth. "Nothing can stop me!"

"Don't you see what's happening?" Shen Wei sounded frantic, and Zhao Yunlan didn't know if he should let Shen Wei keep pleading with Ye Zun and hope it would drive him deeper into his frenzy, or make Shen Wei lie back, shut up, and let Ye Zun finish his inadvertent healing.

The storm in Shen Wei was subsiding, the light energy now a few flickers here and there rather than the strobing nightmare it had been. "I see that you are losing everything you held on to so tightly," Ye Zun said with evident pleasure. "And I see that I am holding all the power to light the Lantern." He was glowing brightly, but breathing out an eclipsing darkness that made him seem like a full moon on a windy night, light wreathed in clouds.

"No," Shen Wei said. "You can't!"

Ye Zun grinned a bully's slow, pleased grin at having a victim cornered. "Oh, but I can. Everyone is always going on about Hei Pao Shi, about how important he is for Dixing—what will they say when the light returns not because of you, but because of me?"

"It won't," Shen Wei's voice was raw, and his body was so tense it was quivering under Zhao Yunlan's arm, but he was still too weak to try to stand.

"You think you're the only one who knows anything? I know about the Hallows! More than you could imagine. And unlike you, I won't be so selfish as to keep this power for myself. I will give Dixing light. As it deserves."

"It will destroy you," Shen Wei said. "Please, didi."

It was as if Ye Zun hadn't even heard him. "I will give them light, and they will love me." Ye Zun looked straight at Shen Wei. When their eyes met, Zhao Yunlan could almost imagine that Ye Zun looked sad. "As I deserve."

Then whatever had been in Ye Zun's face transformed into a snarl. "Now—give it to me!" And as Zhao Yunlan watched, Ye Zun drained Shen Wei of the very last dregs of light energy, leaving his body as dark and calm as the bottom of a nighttime sea.

Shen Wei reached forward, but Zhao Yunlan caught his hand. Pulled it back to Shen Wei's chest, and held him tight. "It's his choice," he murmured when Shen Wei strained against him. Zhao Yunlan didn't think Shen Wei could do anything to stop Ye Zun, but he didn't want to risk this turning into an energy tug-of-war where the winner got to blow themselves up.

"Now watch," Ye Zun said, with petulant solemnity.

His glowing form, still enveloped in shrouds of dark energy, reached for the Lantern.

"No," Shen Wei begged him. "Stop."

Ye Zun smirked, and touched the Lantern. He offered the Hallow the energy that had been Zhao Yunlan's, and asked the Lantern for light.

It flared up, so incandescently brilliant that it filled all of Zhao Yunlan's vision, burned the light into his retinas, and seared his eyes even as he tried to close them, to shield them with his hand. Shen Wei's arm wrapped around his shoulders.

Then Ye Zun screamed, and the world seemed to shatter around Zhao Yunlan.

Chapter Text

Shen Wei watched in helpless horror as his brother reached for the Lantern. Ye Zun had taken in too much of the light energy to have anything left with which to fight the Hallow when he realized the price it demanded. Or maybe it was that Ye Zun held in him now a spark of Zhao Yunlan—and Zhao Yunlan would have chosen to give his life if it could grant Dixing light. And that was the only comfort Shen Wei could cling to—that Zhao Yunlan was here, with him, and the Lantern had all that it needed.

Ye Zun touched the Lantern, and it exploded into brilliance. Zhao Yunlan flinched violently from that light, hands going to cover his face, and Shen Wei swept an arm around him as he stared into the heart of the conflagration surrounding his dying brother.

Shen Wei could do nothing for him. He had tried—he had warned him. Now Ye Zun was being engulfed in the Lantern's brightness, becoming one with it, confusion turning to enraged terror. For all that he had done—for all that the man he had become might deserve it—Shen Wei was still flooded with the same overpowering grief as the first time he had lost his little brother. Shen Wei should have done something—should have saved him. Shen Wei should have—

Ye Zun gave a tortured cry, and the brilliance engulfing him burst like a star going supernova.

The pain as his eardrums ruptured from the sudden change in pressure was a passing detail in the chaos. A singeing heat rushed Shen Wei's skin. Then everything shook in a violent tremor, and a resounding boom echoed around the mountains. Moments later the ground broke, cracks of shining light rising from below on a gust of wind powerful enough to uproot trees. It would have thrown him and Zhao Yunlan high in the air if he hadn't stretched an arm out on instinct and pulled gravity tight around them, holding every single pebble and piece of scorched grass around their bodies firm against that force.

Zhao Yunlan was pressed against his side, and Shen Wei felt him gasp for breath. He released his gravity power a few moments later, when he'd ascertained the remaining frenzied winds weren't strong enough to lift them off the ground. Drawing his arm tight around Zhao Yunlan, Shen Wei focused instead on using pure dark energy as a protective bubble against the debris whipping through the air, and whatever was happening below.

Below—light was coming up from below, as if they were sitting not on solid ground, but on a signal fire bright enough to reach the stars. Shen Wei had a vague notion that it was trapped in a cone around them, pointed straight up rather than spreading across all of Haixing. It was the same with the wild winds—they felt tightly furled upon themselves, as if trapped without room to expand.

Before Ye Zun intervened, Shen Wei couldn't have raised a barrier protecting them from all sides. And for weeks and months, exerting this much force would have cost him dearly. But now—now it was easy to create a bubble of calm, even adding shade from the glare outside. Effortless, almost. As it would have been in Dixing—dark energy flowing freely to him, filling his depleting reserves to overflowing.

Was there dark energy here? Because if so—Shen Wei looked down at Zhao Yunlan, who had his face turned into Shen Wei's shoulder. Seeing nothing but that graceful nape and tangled hair, the concern Shen Wei was feeling flared into full-blown panic.

"Zhao Yunlan?" Shen Wei's ears were throbbing, ringing, the sound of his own voice muffled.

Zhao Yunlan didn't react. Now Shen Wei could see that his hands were fisted in Shen Wei's coat, hard enough that his knuckles showed white. Shen Wei gently touched the top of Zhao Yunlan's head, feeling grit in his hair. "Yunlan?"

At that, Zhao Yunlan looked up. He moved slowly, hesitantly. The first thing Shen Wei noticed was that his face was ashen, and that there was blood on it—coming from his ears and nose, it looked like. He was hurt. The second was how controlled Zhao Yunlan's features were—eyes tightly shut, jaw set, mobile mouth a thin line. Not betraying any particular emotion, and yet the fact that Zhao Yunlan was trying so hard to hide any feeling was a clear sign that he was deeply distressed. Shen Wei had thought his heart at capacity for pain, but seeing Zhao Yunlan like this made it twist and clench.

Shen Wei kept his arm around Zhao Yunlan, who raised a hand to touch the sticky blood under his ear. Strangely enough he relaxed a little when he felt it. Wiping it off on his jeans—Shen Wei noticed they were liberally smeared with blood already—he then brought his hand up in front of his face.

For just a moment, Shen Wei had the disorienting sensation of deja vu, and then he placed the memory—Zhao Yunlan after his first encounter with Ye Zun, wondering why the night was still too dark to see. No. Shen Wei felt like he was standing over very thin ice, the world ready to crack at the slightest motion.

Zhao Yunlan opened his eyes, and his expression twisted. Then he rattled a laugh that froze Shen Wei, as if he had been plunged deep into cold water. "Again?" Zhao Yunlan said, his voice distorted to Shen Wei's aching ears. His hand came up, found Shen Wei's cheek. "No Dial," he said, softly at first, and then shook his head. "Shen Wei. Can you hear me? I can't fucking hear myself. No Dial!"

Around them, the light was dimming, and the wind was dying down. Shen Wei hardly noticed. He dropped his shield when the last speck of dirt lay still, because nothing else was allowed to touch Zhao Yunlan now. Nothing else—too little, too late. Shen Wei had been too weak to protect Zhao Yunlan, and now—he caught Zhao Yunlan's hand in his. Squeezed it wordlessly.

"Ah. Shen Wei." Zhao Yunlan really did relax at that, resting back against the arm Shen Wei had around him, leaning his weight on Shen Wei's side. Then he looked around blindly. "The others." He had tensed up again.

Shen Wei didn't understand. Others?

"The SID—everyone. They came with me. How are they?" Though the words wavered in Shen Wei's hearing, barely audible, the way Zhao Yunlan's voice was rising was unmistakable.

Shen Wei forced himself to stop looking at Zhao Yunlan, and took in their surroundings. It was night, and there was a blue glow from a circle around them that sang with Hallow-power. But there was more light than just that. Flashlights. One beam close by, as steady as if resting on an object and not in a living hand. Others criss-crossed the darkness further away, and seemed to perhaps be approaching. Shen Wei closed his eyes, felt his way to them. Sensed the energy of every member of the SID, alive and unharmed. He was glad, but—what were they doing here?

"Coming," Shen Wei said, making his voice loud enough that he could hear himself. "All of them."

Zhao Yunlan went limp with relief. "They're okay?" Shen Wei read the words on his lips.

"Yes."

Zhao Yunlan's face lit up in a radiant smile. "Good," he said, and nestled into Shen Wei's arms. "Wanna see them." He grimaced. "Ah. You know."

Shen Wei was familiar with the jokes Zhao Yunlan made about his own lack of vision, yes. He tried to do what Zhao Yunlan would have—kept a look out, called out answers when Da Qing and Zhu Hong's voices reached him, sounding tinnier than if they had been speaking on a bad telephone line.

Watched them gather around the circle, failing to cross its glowing boundary. Shen Wei waved power at it, and—nothing. His dark energy simply dissolved on contact.

"Team?" Zhao Yunlan said, loudly enough that Shen Wei caught the impatience.

"Coming," Shen Wei assured him.

"Coming!" Da Qing agreed, and scratched a line through the protective circle with the Awl.

At once, it crumbled into blue sparks and fell away, the last of the wind free to sweep across the mountains.

There was a commotion. Strong flashlight beams pointed straight into Shen Wei's eyes by accident, congratulations for being safe, questions about what happened, about the light. About Zhao Yunlan.

Shen Wei couldn't speak. He was choking on guilt at having put Zhao Yunlan directly in harm's way and then failing to protect him. He raised his free hand and hovered it over Zhao Yunlan's face, closed his eyes and dove in, feeling for whatever was wrong in Zhao Yunlan's body. Each bruise and abrasion was a testament to Shen Wei's weakness—some of the damage was old, and should have been healed before. Some was new, and Shen Wei should have kept it from happening. The fracture in the half-healed broken arm had reopened. There was damage in Zhao Yunlan's injured shoulder that felt bad enough that Shen Wei was surprised Zhao Yunlan had still been moving that arm. And then there was the worst of it—punctured eardrums, and eyes that didn't see.

Would never see again.

No.

No.

Shen Wei gathered Zhao Yunlan to himself, desperate. After touching each of his teammates in turn as Shen Wei examined him, Zhao Yunlan had relaxed into a pain-filled stupor. "I need…" Shen Wei said, the words echoing in his skull, and looked at Zhu Hong, trying to speak clearly and not too loudly. "There's a lot of power here. I can heal him. But I don't know—you might want to move." It was all the warning he could give, here in this place where his brother had died, where the Lantern had been lit. Where Dixing and Haixing had touched.

Zhu Hong and the others exchanged a few words, and she nodded reluctantly. "We'll be right here when you need us." She was enunciating clearly, speaking loudly.

"Thank you."

Shen Wei couldn't wait long. Didn't want to, and couldn't—the spike of power was already fading. So he lifted Zhao Yunlan up into his arms, in an embrace that made Zhao Yunlan shudder and press his face into Shen Wei's neck, breathing fast, mumbling something Shen Wei couldn't make out. But he was hurt. He was in pain. Zhao Yunlan was suffering, and damaged, all because of Shen Wei, and that he could not allow.

With Zhao Yunlan held this close, and the bountiful energy around him, it was the easiest thing in the world for Shen Wei to revert the damage. To atone for his mistakes. To make sure that whatever happened next, Zhao Yunlan wouldn't have to bear any of the scars Shen Wei had carved into his body.

Shen Wei massed his will, and healing flowed forth.

Zhao Yunlan went from clinging to Shen Wei in absolute relief, so aching and exhausted he shook with it, barely able to stay awake through checking up on his team as they checked up on him, to—floating. Soaring. Feeling a golden warmth blooming in each and every hurt. And then he could hear properly, and when he blinked there was light, not just darkness. Shen Wei was holding him tight, with an easy, gentle strength that Zhao Yunlan hadn't felt in the Shen Wei of his time since—since he couldn't really remember. But it was there now, that wonderful juxtaposition of power and restraint that always undid him.

Not that he needed to be more undone. He felt too many emotions. Dizzy joy, mild confusion—sharp horror, at the memory of bringing his lips to Shen Wei's lifeless ones in a bloody parody of a kiss. But Shen Wei was alive now. So alive—so very alive.

Carefully opening eyes that stung a bit, Zhao Yunlan saw pink light. He could see—but what was he looking at? He blinked. Saw the same thing, and resigned himself to being dead, because that would explain the nice floaty painlessness, and all the trappings beside. But he didn't like the idea of being dead and having Shen Wei there, still, because that would mean Shen Wei was dead, and that would be unacceptable.

With an early-morning groan of everything being too difficult and wanting to go back to sleep, he shoved against Shen Wei's chest.

Shen Wei almost dropped him in his haste to allow Zhao Yunlan to wriggle free. Only almost, of course—he hastily turned the fumble into depositing Zhao Yunlan on his butt on the ground. Zhao Yunlan leaned back on his elbows and stared at Shen Wei, because nothing else was as important as him.

Zhao Yunlan's inspection told him that Shen Wei's face looked a lot better. The only blood on it was crusty now, and there was actual color back in his cheeks. His eyes were wide and shiny. Scared? Surprised, maybe. He didn't have his glasses. There was dirt and dried blood on his green coat, and he was now kneeling anxiously, staring back at Zhao Yunlan.

"How are you feeling?" Shen Wei asked, at the same time as Zhao Yunlan grinned and said, "You're okay."

They both startled into silence. Then Zhao Yunlan laughed, low and joyful, head spinning with how much he loved the beautiful man in front of him, and tugged Shen Wei down into a kiss. Shen Wei gasped, but didn't protest. Wrapped his arms around Zhao Yunlan and kissed back with a naked desperation that jarred Zhao Yunlan into actually thinking, and not just basking in bliss. "Shen Wei," he said, and—okay, he was going to do a bit more of the bliss thing because saying Shen Wei's name, and seeing him respond with such attentive focus was all very, very good.

"Baby. What's all...this?" Zhao Yunlan gestured around them with one hand. He didn't think Shen Wei had had any role in the pink-washed clouds or gray dawn light, but as for the rest? Where he clearly remembered cold dirt, fresh grass sprouted, tender green and soft under Zhao Yunlan's body. It was thronging with wildflowers—small white ones like clusters of lace, tiny fireworks of bright pink, blues in any number of different hues, and bright yellow ones like stars. Their fragrance was sweet and rich, and above them a breeze rustled in new leaves on the nearest tree, which dropped a few dancing petals.

Either Zhao Yunlan had slept for months, or Shen Wei had somehow transformed winter into spring here. And given Shen Wei's sheepish expression, Zhao Yunlan was pretty sure he could leave 'sleep for months' on his to-do.

"I…" Shen Wei glanced around, the color from the sunrise sky staining his cheeks. "There was...a lot of energy."

A twinge of fear made Zhao Yunlan sit bolt upright. "Energy how? Did it get in you, are you—"

Shen Wei smiled ruefully, and Zhao Yunlan's own smile came creeping back. "It wasn't bad. It didn't hurt me—I am fine, really, I swear."

Zhao Yunlan believed him. Snuggled up into Shen Wei's waiting arms and touched his face again, because he could. "You are?"

"I believe it was because lighting the Lantern—" Shen Wei's eyes betrayed the pain he tried to hide at the memory of how that had happened "—it reopened the connection between Dixing and Haixing. And here, with three of the Hallows? It was as if I could dip into all the power of Dixing."

Delighted, Zhao Yunlan looked at the riot of flowers. "Wait. This is something you did with dark energy? From Dixing? Does that mean that Dixing is blooming, too?"

"It—oh." Shen Wei made a cute face, looking poleaxed and happy. "It...might."

Zhao Yunlan hoped so. They were due a bit of greenery and color down there.

"But my intent wasn't—this." Shen Wei looked a bit more serious now. "It was to heal."

Zhao Yunlan closed his eyes for another few seconds, needing to not think about just how badly he'd needed that healing. The way his eyes had felt, together with how he could hardly hear—that had not been good. Then he inhaled slowly, the scent of fresh growing things a wonderful distraction. "Well. You did that." Zhao Yunlan had meant himself and Shen Wei—from the looks of it Shen Wei really had fixed himself up too—but actually…"And this is a kind of healing? The landscape, I mean. Seeds want to sprout, buds want to bloom—that's nature when it's most full of life, right?"

"Yes," Shen Wei said, that sheepish look back in his face. "But it's too early in spring—too cold for all of these flowers to survive…"

Trust Shen Wei to be worried about the flowers. "Do you feel cold?"

Shen Wei blinked at the question. Tore his gaze from Zhao Yunlan's face with visible effort, and took in more details of their surroundings.

There was a warm, gentle breeze rising, stirring the grass. Not coming down from the mountains, and definitely not the biting cold Zhao Yunlan remembered from making his way here in the dark. He knew he wasn't imagining it—Shen Wei's arms were holding him perfectly tight, but the heat he felt from that was all his own. No, this was coming from outside the circle of his lover's arms.

"That's...impossible…" Shen Wei murmured.

Zhao Yunlan grinned. "Nothing is impossible for us." It felt true. He had travelled in time. Shen Wei had waited ten thousand years. Shen Wei had found him again, and lost him, and they had reunited in a vast endless space, just them and all of time. And now, at last, they were together and Dixing had light. A bubble of spring in the mountains of Haixing seemed a very small impossibility next to all that.

"Perhaps—the connection with Dixing. It may not be fully broken, and—"

"—and you've made the impossible happen," Zhao Yunlan said, conviction vying for adoration in his voice. He turned away from the spring sunrise to wind his fingers into Shen Wei's hair.

Shen Wei's eyes were fathomless, and the kiss they shared was one Zhao Yunlan could happily have drowned in. Well, his heart could have. His body went a little breathless, a little light, and he had to break the kiss and burrow into the crook of Shen Wei's neck. Holding on. Feeling Shen Wei breathing, moving. Inhaling the scent of lightning-scorched earth and sweat mingling with sweet wildflowers. Not too far away he could hear Da Qing and Zhu Hong calling questions.

"Yunlan?" Shen Wei sounded so tender. So afraid.

Zhao Yunlan breathed into the closeness between them, tired and whole and getting closer to fine. "Let's get the others and go home," he murmured.

"Yes," Shen Wei agreed, as softly as the spring breeze that surrounded them. "Home."

Chapter Text

Relief that the portal opened transformed into shocked wonder as they stepped through into a Dixing bathed in light.

This was not a Dixing Shen Wei had ever seen, and he stopped between the stone pillars of the entryway. He stared, not even noticing that he was swaying in place until Zhao Yunlan's hand closed around his shoulder, steadying him. "Shen Wei?"

The grief and gratitude he felt commingled, making it impossible for him to answer Zhao Yunlan in words. He managed a nod, and a smile of joy so fierce it made his tears overflow.

Shen Wei hadn't worn his robes and mask—Ye Zun had used Hei Pao Shi's role and reputation against the people of Dixing and Haixing both. It was one of many things they had come to set right, and Shen Wei could not do so while in his brother's shadow.

And so his face was naked in his brother's light.

Shen Wei blinked, and Dixing blurred. Zhao Yunlan was next to him, a solid presence, sharing his emotions in uncharacteristic silence. Shen Wei blinked again, and saw that the world was still shimmering, even without the haze of tears.

The Lantern shone with a glow stronger than that of Haixing's moon. Bright enough to read the fine print of an academic journal by, it was nothing like the sun. It was illumination meant for Dixing: mellow and diffuse; a soft presence in this city used to night. It did not burn any shadows away, but herded them into comfortable nooks and crannies. As for the rest—anyone brave enough to venture out under the newly luminous sky was rewarded with unprecedented beauty.

Silver rays picked out veins of quartz in the rough-hewn stone facades and and high arches, making the buildings around them glow with subtle threads of light. And underfoot, the gravel glittered like a starry sky, flecks of mica shining brightly wherever the Lantern touched them.

Habit made Shen Wei move toward Dijun Palace, Zhao Yunlan never leaving his side, squeezing his arm when he would have strayed to stare at the golden sparks of pyrite in what had been a dull gray arch, at the opals set in an ordinary window frame fracturing the silver light into rainbows.

These riches had always been here, as hidden by the dark as the rest of Dixing. Until now, when they were coming to life.

One death for all this life. Shen Wei mourned and rejoiced, and wondered if any of this gentle, enveloping radiance reflected what his brother had wanted for Dixing. In life, Ye Zun had held on to every wrong and slight, every bitter experience. He had been more like a black hole than a sun. But now the Guardian Lantern was exuding light with generous abundance, and Shen Wei wondered—hoped—if it was possible that enough of Ye Zun lingered to see what its ethereal night brightness was bringing Dixing.

Walking on, Shen Wei saw that it wasn't just the minerals waking to the light. There was greenery sprouting everywhere. Seedlings and tender leaves and mushrooms and fungi spreading, growing, poking out between the cracks of old walls and sprouting from abandoned pots. It was nothing like the bubble of spring they had left behind in the mountains the day before, but it was more than had grown wild in Dixing in Shen Wei's long memory.

They turned a corner, and lost their breath together.

Dijun Palace stood out like a beacon against the muted sky. The once-dark rocks of the structure were lit up, reflecting and refracting the Lantern's light. Unlike the pale threads and starlight glimmer of the city, the palace was colorful—fire and ice, a latticework like pearlescent auroras emerging from every carved surface. Shen Wei wasn't close enough to see what mineral caused the effect, but it made the palace seem only half solid.

"Wow," Zhao Yunlan breathed. It was the first word either of them had spoken out loud, and as if it had broken some enchantment, they heard running footsteps. Zhao Yunlan let Shen Wei draw up in front of him, and while it should have pleased him that Zhao Yunlan was learning caution, all it did was remind him of the pain and fear that Zhao Yunlan had suffered here so very recently. Running his hands over Zhao Yunlan's naked skin last night, Shen Wei had found no trace of scars, no matter how carefully he felt for them. But healing was not the same as recovery, and Shen Wei felt banked fury even before he saw the palace guards in their dark coats coming around a corner.

They stopped. Hesitated. None of them touched the rifles they carried slung to their backs

Shen Wei had his blade in hand. He didn't know when he had summoned it.

"Hei Pao Shi," a young woman stammered, after her fellows had shoved her forward. "We heard—we heard you were back in Dixing."

"I am."

"Right. So. Um. Would you please come with us?" She said it all in a rush. Did she look vaguely familiar? And was her coat not very big on her?

While Shen Wei was still studying her, weighing the threat of the palace guard—Ye Zun's guards, who had held Zhao Yunlan and so many other of his people captive—against the need for more information, Zhao Yunlan shouldered past him.

"Hey," Zhao Yunlan grinned. "How's An Bai doing?"

The girl's eyes widened, and when Shen Wei saw the incongruous necklace flashing silver at her throat he finally recognized her. She was Dandan, An Bai's companion, who had once tried to harm Zhao Yunlan. And then the Regent had pulled his threads, and she had been used as leverage to make An Bai accept the throne.

Dandan hushed them, and bustled them into the palace without answering any questions. Even with her hurrying them along, Shen Wei didn't miss how Zhao Yunlan tensed upon passing from the Lantern's light to the palace's heavy shadow. The exterior might have taken on shining new hues, but the thick walls extinguished that brilliance before it could make it inside. The sound of their footfalls echoed in the gloomy corridors, and then they were in the throne room.

What was left of it.

Rocks had fallen from the vaulted ceiling, pillars lay shattered on the broken stone floor, and lava had escaped cracked gutters and flowed into the debris where it had hardened into unsightly black lumps.

Zhao Yunlan stopped, clutching Shen Wei's arm while making a sound that had Shen Wei ready to grab him and portal back to the gateway to Dixing. Then the feeling of fingers digging into his flesh disappeared as Shen Wei went numb. What caught his attention wasn't the destruction of the throne room—it was the man in white standing behind the screen above them. An Bai, current victim to the throne of Dixing, was sitting obediently at his side. The red lattice had holes smashed through it, but it still obscured the figure behind it enough that Shen Wei had the time to feel terror and relief and a hopeless longing—and then Zhao Yunlan burst out laughing.

Shen Wei blinked, incapable of reconciling that merry sound with the terrible danger he thought them both in.

Behind that jagged red wood, gaping like an open wound, a golden mask framed by silver hair looked up at them. "Hei Pao Shi! Lord Guardian!"

Zhao Yunlan slung his arm around Shen Wei's shoulders in a familiar companionable gesture that also served to hold him back. To steady him, as he finally put all the pieces of the puzzle together—the voice, the strange elongated stature, the body language.

"It's okay, you guys come down here so we can talk," Zhao Yunlan called.

Not Ye Zun. It was not Ye Zun at all.

Two young men clambered carefully down the ruined stairs. An Bai, in red robes, looked pleased to see them. The other—taller, with a gawky air that wasn't helped by the white robes he wore showing off his calves—looked apprehensive. He had taken off the mask, and was self-consciously tugging at the long hair of his obvious wig. More platinum than silver, now that Shen Wei could see it clearly.

"Gotta love how kids these days just go for impersonating their boss the first chance they get," Zhao Yunlan said. "First Xiao Guo with my old man, and now these two, with—all of Dixing?" He could clearly be overheard, and An Bai snorted.

"All of Dixing's been in uproar. But a bunch of that asshole's minions, for sure."

Dandan glared at An Bai, casting a meaningful look in Shen Wei's direction. "He means Lord Ye Zun. Who is...um. Is he coming back?"

"No," Zhao Yunlan said, very shortly. His arm tightened around Shen Wei.

"He is not," Shen Wei agreed, when the young people all stared at Zhao Yunlan.

"That bastard," Dandan exclaimed, in evident relief to get an insult of her own in. "He was so full of shit about how great he'd be for Dixing, and then—" She turned to Zhao Yunlan. "What happened?"

"Long story," Zhao Yunlan said, and released Shen Wei. He hopped up on the nearest slagheap, which had an oddly untouched chair leg sticking out of the black bubble of cooling rock. Shen Wei was quite happy standing, but he made sure to stay within an arm's length of Zhao Yunlan. "We'll get to it in a moment. But—you guys. Ye Zun disappeared, and An Song decided to go for a worst cosplay award?"

An Song. That was the tall young man's name. Shen Wei remembered now, as he stared at them. Zhao Yunlan had made himself the target of all the attention in the room—the nervous youngsters who had been with Dandan and the two An boys were all looking at him.

"It worked, didn't it?" An Bai grinned, taking a seat of his own.

"The guards did what you told them?"

"Idiots," An Song shook his head.

"We've got them trussed up in one of the boss's old cells. Some of them might be a bit worse for wear," Dandan reported proudly.

Zhao Yunlan was smiling when he asked, "So, where's the Regent been in all this?"

The young men froze. Possibly they had heard something in Zhao Yunlan's voice. The other two sidled over to An Bai, as if this was something they could deal with as long as they were shoulder to shoulder. "He, um," An Bai said, and his gaze swept past Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei both. "He's over there somewhere?"

Shen Wei was struck with a moment's panic at Zhao Yunlan's sharp intake of breath. He couldn't see anything—had Zhao Yunlan? Should Shen Wei be doing something—protecting him? And then he heard Zhao Yunlan exhale a snort.

"You saw it happen?"

An Bai shrugged. "It was just when everything went from being super blurry to becoming clear again, but—yeah. Pretty sure that pillar hit him when it fell?" He pointed. "And then the lava…" He shrugged again, with all the eloquence of someone trying not to say good riddance about a man who had been a power to be reckoned with in the Dixing government for longer than Shen Wei had been part of it this side of ten thousand years.

The Regent was dead, and the young man he had forced into taking Dixing's throne had used his wits and his friends to outsmart anyone else who was loyal to Ye Zun before Dixing. The fact that Ye Zun still had the mask, and that he was well known to be erratic and demanding must have made it easy for them to keep the charade up for the day or so since Ye Zun had disappeared.

An Bai had seen Ye Zun standing in the middle of the throne room with the Guardian Lantern—had gotten the world's oddest one-sided conversation, which he repeated accurately enough that Shen Wei knew for certain that he had been looking at Ye Zun's physical form as Ye Zun was with them in Haixing.

And then An Bai had seen a blinding flash of light—Shen Wei would have to check his eyes later, though he seemed to be fine now—and then Ye Zun and the Guardian Lantern were gone, and the throne room was crumbling.

Ye Zun was gone.

But when they finally went back outside together, the Lantern was there above them. Shining with a silver light.

There was light falling through the windows to the Dijun Palace's fanciest conference room. It had a boardroom style table, a blackboard (chalk refills being easier to come by than whiteboard pens) and chairs. It did not have a speaker phone, because even after weeks of clever attempts Lin Jing and Cong Bo—now officially a technical consultant to the SID—were still tearing their hair out over how to get a persistent connection between Dixing and Haixing.

The room had not had a window when the meeting started. Shen Wei was trying to keep everyone focused on the agenda, but it was one thing to ignore the window-washers in a Haixing office, and another to ignore people making windows as they watched.

Zhao Yunlan had seen the Lius' work before—everyone in Dixing had—but he hadn't seen them in action. Not like this, up close. There were three of them. Tough old grandma Liu, her son—also Liu—and his young daughter. Schools weren't up and running yet—they had to train enough teachers first—but she looked like she would barely be out of a Dragon City preschool. And yet here she was, balancing on the rickety scaffolding with an easy confidence— and, Zhao Yunlan was relieved to note, a safety harness. The top of her head was clearly visible through the crystal-clear window that had already materialized. The rest of her was coming into slow view as the dark rock of the wall transformed.

It was a fascinating spectacle, and Shen Wei sighed and announced a break in the meeting. Then he watched the little girl intently. Zhao Yunlan wondered if it would be enough to let Shen Wei pick up the knack—might be a handy one to have, though Zhao Yunlan would absolutely stop him from adding 'volunteer glassmaker' to his copious other duties.

It didn't take long before the ordinary, solid wall began to waver. What had been absolutely opaque took on a translucence that started as a vague kind of...smear. It made Zhao Yunlan think of street food wrapped in paper, and how the grease stains spread to let light through. It was the same here, only instead of a stain it was the form of the girl outside, her palms planted at shoulder level against the rock-turning-glass. Soon the rock was clear enough that they could see her face set in a fierce frown of concentration. Her new window spread a bit, growing wider and taller, and then she stepped away, puffed her cheeks out while shaking her hands out. Her dad gave her a pat on the head, and her grandmother nodded in approval. The girl beamed—then pushed her face against the new glass, her hand raised to shadow her eyes so she could stare down at them.

Zhao Yunlan waved. The girl waved back, grinning. Then she darted back to her dad's side, as if startled by her own boldness. He smiled and shook his head, saying something, and then the glassmaker matriarch stepped in front of him, finishing up the window. She did it so quickly it was like watching ice melting in an oven, leaving behind two crystal clear rectangles that let silvery light flood into the meeting room. Then she was gone, and Zhao Yunlan could finally breathe.

Fuck. That feeling—he had been concentrating so hard on ignoring it that he'd almost managed to fool himself that it was gone. But now that what passed for broad daylight in Dixing had replaced flickering torchlight, there was no denying that he found it much easier to focus on how many carats of diamonds Dixing would be allowed to export to Haixing industries without destabilizing the market.

Zhao Yunlan had been coming to the palace for weeks. Weeks, and he'd told Shen Wei he was fine. Had told himself he was fine. Had gotten used to the darkness and the heavy walls around him. It couldn't be helped. It was just how the inside of the palace was. Feeling a bit trapped was perfectly normal for a Haixingren. Anyone would feel relief at walking down the palace steps and seeing the soft light Dixing's Lantern provided, even when it dimmed at night.

Of course it was good to be outside and see how things there were changing, growing. Constructed using a mix of Dixing powers and visiting Haixing experts, the small clinic that would serve until a hospital could be staffed was reaching completion already. And the Lantern light had proved better for crops than Lin Jing could quite explain, coaxing plants from seed to fruit in a fraction of the time it should take. Plus there were all the new kinds of growth that Li Qian and the Flower Tribe's Ying Chun were both going nuts about for different reasons—flowers and lichen that glowed at night, mushrooms so nutritious it ought not be possible.

Dixing had become a world of marvels, and until today Zhao Yunlan had been able to tell himself that was why he liked leaving the palace. He hadn't dwelled much on the fact that he scheduled as many meetings as possible in Haixing instead of here, and that when he was here, there were places he didn't go. So far the new Dixing Council had not protested his many unavoidable absences from their gatherings in the room that was just down the hall from—

From that damned cell.

Which he had spent so much energy not thinking about that it was slowly draining him, leaving exhaustion like a fever in his body, a haze in his brain. Making him snappish with his team, and with Shen Wei—they didn't deserve it. After everything they'd done to bring him back, just holding his temper in check most of the time wasn't good enough. They deserved him at his best, and he was...fine. He was fine.

But he wasn't good. Not as long as he kept avoiding what he didn't want to face: the fear, the memories. The conversations he and Shen Wei had both skipped through, touching on enough to make them both upset without ever delving too deep. Leaving them both more than ready to let themselves be distracted any way they could.

Shen Wei was a beautiful, compelling distraction. And so Zhao Yunlan had made it a priority to loosen the tension gathered in that strong, gorgeous frame, and Shen Wei had helped Zhao Yunlan heal. They had helped each other with the worst of it. Or so he'd thought. But maybe the worst of it was what they were both still avoiding.

Really, it had been working so well, Zhao Yunlan thought. He let himself feel disgruntled so he wouldn't have to feel despairing. Because now that he'd had this stupid epiphany, he really should do something about it. Just avoiding it wasn't going to work. Not anymore.

The meeting seemed to drag on forever, with so many asides and pleasantries that Zhao Yunlan fantasized about charging by the hour. Not that the SID was charging for this—not more than the increased budget Zhao Yunlan had driven through with surprising ease and the even more surprising aid of Zhao Xinci.

Finally the industry representatives had said all of their goodbyes. Shen Wei led them out the door, and then they were to be whisked away back to Haixing while Zhao Yunlan stayed behind to write up yet another report on the negotiations to the Haixing Ministry of Supervision and the Dixing Council.

The moment he was alone, Zhao Yunlan walked out the door. He rolled his neck, inhaled, and took a turn that would lead him deeper into the palace rather than into the Lantern light outside. His chest felt tight, and with each footstep echoing in the stone hallway it was getting tighter.

"Zhao Yunlan?" Shen Wei's voice stopped Zhao Yunlan in his tracks. He turned around, and found Shen Wei standing in a rectangle of light at the end of the hallway. There must be a new window there, too.

"You're done at the portal already?"

"Dandan is taking them," Shen Wei said, brows creasing. "Did we have another meeting?"

Zhao Yunlan looked over his shoulder down into the torchlit dark. "Not exactly." He'd been so set on getting this over with, he hadn't considered that Shen Wei might find him. Or maybe he'd been hoping Shen Wei wouldn't find him. Zhao Yunlan couldn't quite explain what he was doing to himself—how could he begin to make sense of it for Shen Wei?

"Not exactly?"

"No. No meeting." Zhao Yunlan stood very still, trying not to fidget in any way that would give away the buzz of fear-ladened determination driving him.

Shen Wei eyed him carefully. "Zhao Yunlan?"

Zhao Yunlan sucked in a breath. Let it out slowly, as he tried to unclench his fists and relax his shoulders. "I've got to go back."

By the way Shen Wei tensed, it was clear he understood where back was. "You don't have to."

Zhao Yunlan shook his head, dispelling Shen Wei's quick effort to protect him. "I do. I can't—I've been avoiding it. And it's just a room. If I can't go there—if I keep avoiding it—"

Shen Wei moved closer, close enough to place a hand gently on Zhao Yunlan's shoulder. Zhao Yunlan gave him a pale smile. He appreciated Shen Wei's concern, and the fact that the touch could easily be taken for simple camaraderie by anyone walking past. "He's gone," Zhao Yunlan said, with relief for himself and everyone else who had suffered, and regret for Shen Wei's loss. "I can't let him decide where I go, what I do—how I feel…"

"There is no hurry," Shen Wei said, clearly unhappy to see Zhao Yunlan so incoherent for no good reason.

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right." Zhao Yunlan acknowledged Shen Wei's point with a twitch of a shrug. "Except—for me. I want to be done, you know?"

Shen Wei didn't quite flinch, but he was clearly keeping strong emotions of his own in check. "Yes."

"And I know it's going to take more time, I know it is, but—at some point the Council's going to get annoyed I keep blowing them off." He aimed a crooked smile at Shen Wei, who didn't return it. It was true that there was more to it that Zhao Yunlan wasn't saying, but only because he didn't know how to put it into words. Only because he needed to do this.

"Do you want me to stay here?" Shen Wei's carefully worded request for permission to come along made Zhao Yunlan smile a little brighter. He noticed that Shen Wei hadn't forced him into having to accept company or else outright say I don't want you to come.

"Do you want to come?" Inviting Shen Wei along came easily, partly because he hadn't been pushing for it, partly because. Well. Shen Wei had his own reasons to want to avoid the memories brought on by that room.

The question gave Shen Wei pause. He looked at Zhao Yunlan, then over his shoulder. Lowered his gaze to the hallway floor before flicking it back up to meet Zhao Yunlan's gaze. "With you? Yes."

Zhao Yunlan nodded, and Shen Wei squeezed his shoulder. They turned around and faced the hallway together.

It wasn't difficult to remember the way. Zhao Yunlan had been conscious enough to memorize it when he'd been dragged through it the first time, and he'd had a lot of time to think about all the routes he might use on an escape. He'd known it would be unlikely he'd ever get past the cell door, given the chains Ye Zun had him in, but it had given him something to do that was at least vaguely productive.

It wasn't far. People still came through here, just like any other corridor in the palace. They drew a few stares and polite nods—so incongruous with the increasingly rapid beat of Zhao Yunlan's heart, like he was doing something illicit and dangerous.

The door looked different from outside. And it had a key stuck in it now. One of those big metal ones, where the head of the key served as a ring for turning the lock and swinging the door open.

Zhao Yunlan had never opened it before.

The metal of the key was cold against his fingertips, and it turned in the lock with a click that brought a sudden spike of adrenaline. It isn't safe! the sound said, and Zhao Yunlan's body agreed, coiled and ready to spring into action. To get the fuck away from this place before—

The door creaked open. Their two shadows side by side were thrown across the floor as light from the hallway spilled inside. Without thinking, Zhao Yunlan grasped Shen Wei's hand in his own, and saw their shadows linked.

The room—the cell—was still the same. Much dimmer than the hallway, the vein of lava glowing orange, running in close parallel to the far wall. There was a stale smell—not just sulphur, but air trapped motionless for too long. There had been no reason for anyone to stop by in weeks. The palace staff were busy enough with everything that was changing in Dixing—why should they have come by to clean up this room nobody needed?

The pallet was still right there by the wall on Zhao Yunlan's right. There were chains on the dirty floor next to it, shining impossibly white in the murky light. The dark stains on them showed up as clearly as sunspots through a telescope.

Zhao Yunlan stood frozen until he heard Shen Wei's soft sound of distress. He squeezed Shen Wei's hand. "It's okay," he said, but his voice didn't hold steady. "It's okay." He wondered who he was trying to soothe, repeating the words as if it would help him believe they were true. "You can stay here if you want?"

Shen Wei looked at him with eyes so dark it seemed they were absorbing all light. The guilt in them was painfully familiar, and there were deep and complicated shades of feeling under that which Zhao Yunlan couldn't even begin to resolve in that moment. "I'll come with you, Zhao Yunlan."

It made Zhao Yunlan's heart do wild things, that statement. Knowing Shen Wei meant it literally, but not just here. Not just now. Shen Wei would come with him anywhere, would never choose to be parted from him again. Wherever Zhao Yunlan asked him to go, Shen Wei would follow. Even though he was no general, no hero. Just a man who loved Shen Wei above all else. Not trusting his voice, Zhao Yunlan nodded. He dropped Shen Wei's hand, because they were not shadows, and would not fit side by side through the door.

Then he was back inside, and choking. He brought his hand to his throat—he was wearing a soft, scoop-neck t-shirt and an unzipped, unbuttoned leather jacket. Ever since he came back from the mountain all healed up and free from the sling, he hadn't been able to stand anything that felt constricting around his neck or his wrists. His shaking fingers found nothing but clammy skin—no metal, no scabs. He stood there, stock still, and focused on breathing through it.

The touch of Shen Wei's hand between his shoulder blades surprised him, but he soon relaxed a fraction of his weight into it where it moved slowly up and down in perfect time to his breaths. "Zhao Yunlan?" Shen Wei's voice was laden with a sharp anxiety.

"Here," Zhao Yunlan said, and let out one last, long breath. "I'm—" Not fine. But that's what he was here for. "It's okay." He took a step forward, away from Shen Wei. Looked around and was fiercely relieved that no other sense memories came back as strongly as that of the collar around his neck had done. But his heart was rabbiting in his chest, and he felt cold and shaky and wanted to bolt. He refused to budge.

Next to him Shen Wei was staring at the long coils of silver chain.

"Xiao Wei," Zhao Yunlan said, and pressed close to his lover's side. When Shen Wei didn't shrug him off he snuck an arm around his waist so they stood solidly as one.

"I don't have the power he used to forge them," Shen Wei said, very quietly. "If it had been one I could learn—could learn to undo…" In the way his words trailed off Zhao Yunlan heard the same anguish as had driven them into each other's arms over and over again. But there was a spark of gladness in that Shen Wei didn't immediately add an apology. He understood himself forgiven, even if he was still working on accepting that Zhao Yunlan felt he ought to be the one holding the guilt. He had asked Shen Wei to get him out—hadn't set any conditions or limitations, and so Shen Wei had done the only thing he could.

"If he thought you knew how to undo them, he would have used something else," Zhao Yunlan said. He knew it was true. The fail-safes Ye Zun had put in place—having the Regent supervise his visits, proving his identity in his willingness to hurt Zhao Yunlan—had all been about forcing Shen Wei to either give up in despair or break himself going against his very nature. Despite his efforts to keep the memories of the specifics of that part of his captivity far away, a shiver still went through him. Shen Wei broke out of his contemplation to swing around and wrap himself around Zhao Yunlan.

It felt good.

Weird, because all of his senses were picking up details—the smell of the place, the lack of light, the way sounds bounced off the stone walls—that told him Shen Wei absolutely couldn't be here. But he was.

And Zhao Yunlan had made it inside again. Despite the instincts screaming at him to get away, he had entered this room, had stood here long enough that he could leave now. Was itching with the need for it, was almost ready to fight his way out of Shen Wei's embrace and run—But no. Fuck that. He wasn't going to. Ye Zun couldn't make him.

"This is nice," he mumbled into Shen Wei's neck, letting the contact settle him. Then he sighed, because this was pretty much running away, too. He wasn't here anymore, he was just—with Shen Wei. Where he was always safe. Always home.

He gently untangled himself to look straight at Shen Wei. "If you want to go, you can."

Shen Wei's face was pale but his expression was collected. Orange light glinted off his glasses. "Do you need to stay?"

Zhao Yunlan rattled a dry laugh. He had already spent far too long in this place, and it was ridiculous to imagine that the answer wasn't no. "Yeah," he said, and when Shen Wei nodded he added, "You?"

"If you are here, then I will stay, Zhao Yunlan."

Zhao Yunlan looked down quickly, so that he could swallow against the hot flood rising in his throat. "Thanks," he whispered. He looked at the open door. A once impossible goal now within easy reach. And yet he couldn't go now, because he'd never work up the angry courage to make it back in here if he left. He knew it as sure as he knew the only pain that was real in this moment was that from the crescents of his fingernails digging into his palms.

He forced one hand open, and interlaced his fingers with Shen Wei's. Without a word, he covered the distance to his cot—the cot—and tugged Shen Wei down as he sat on the floor. That he could do. It would have to be enough, because he wasn't touching the smelly, scratchy blanket or thin woven mattress ever again.

He sat with his back against the cold stone floor, but leaned against Shen Wei's body next to him. His presence there kept the worst of the shudders at bay, but Shen Wei noticed the ones that he couldn't quite suppress. He turned to Zhao Yunlan, his brows drawn in anxious concern.

"Yunlan," Shen Wei said, and then trailed off uncertainly.

"Yeah?"

"It's painful? For you, to be here?"

Zhao Yunlan grimaced. He didn't want to lie—hadn't lied to Shen Wei, not about any of this—but 'pain' could be defined very narrowly. "It's better than pretending I've never been here," Zhao Yunlan said by way of attempted explanation.

"And…" Shen Wei halted, and the vulnerable uncertainty in his face made Zhao Yunlan want to take him in his arms. Instead he tilted his head in a question, inviting the rest of Shen Wei's words. He wasn't the only one with a lot of things he needed to process. "And if you didn't have to pretend?"

Zhao Yunlan didn't follow. "What do you mean?"

"You are...trying to overwrite your memories of this place, yes?"

"Yeah, something like that," Zhao Yunlan said.

Shen Wei looked intently at him. "Do you want me to take them away?"

"Oh," Zhao Yunlan said, realizing what Shen Wei was offering. He might not have made the connection so quickly if it hadn't been for Da Qing. Shen Wei's grand healing spring had cured everyone in the vicinity of physical ills—Xiao Guo had cried with gratitude when he realized he could cancel his upcoming dentist's appointment.

It had also for some reason unlocked all of Da Qing's memories. Which he had gamely kept to himself until they were all safely back in the SID headquarters and then he'd had clutched at Shen Wei and begged him for help. Apparently even the king of cats was not meant to carry the weight of ten thousand years. Zhao Yunlan had never heard such naked pain in his friend's voice as when he tried to explain what he needed. Brimming with power, and still boosted by three of the four Hallows, Shen Wei had worked another rapid miracle on Da Qing, who had proclaimed himself all better before curling up in Zhao Yunlan's arms and sleeping like a milk-sated kitten.

And now Shen Wei was suggesting that Zhao Yunlan do the same? Because it was true that he had come here to make other memories of this room than the ones he had with Ye Zun. That he wanted to be able to walk down the hallway outside without risking a panic attack. But did he want the memories gone? Zhao Yunlan felt a twinge of unease at the thought of amputating any of himself, but he knew Shen Wei only wanted to help. He gentled his voice when he gave the only reply he could. "And you?"

"Me?" Shen Wei sounded baffled.

"Could you take away your own memories?"

Shen Wei looked as confused as if Zhao Yunlan had asked him to do a headstand. "No, that's not possible. But why—"

Zhao Yunlan twisted, kneeling up so he could interrupt Shen Wei by caressing both hands through his hair, until he could bracket Shen Wei's head in a gentle grip, and bring his own face so close their foreheads were almost touching. "Baby," he said with fond emphasis. "I am not going to leave you alone to remember—to remember all of that."

"But you have dreams—nightmares—" Shen Wei wasn't trying to break free of Zhao Yunlan's hold, so Zhao Yunlan ran one hand down the side of his face in a caress.

"Everyone has nightmares."

"He hurt you," Shen Wei said, and his voice cracked.

Zhao Yunlan let his head fall against Shen Wei's. Cupped the back of his neck. "Yeah," he rasped. "And he hurt you."

Shen Wei had been cagey about admitting that. Now, back here in this place, he let the faintest, "Yes," escape.

This close, Shen Wei's glasses poked Zhao Yunlan's face. He reached out to lift them off and fold them away as he spoke. "Your brother hurt you because he knew how. Knew that pretending to be him would be the worst thing he could do to you. Because you're nothing like he was. Nothing. You hear me, Xiao Wei?"

"Yunlan." It was a breath, a gasp. Of despair or relief, Zhao Yunlan couldn't tell, because he'd gathered Shen Wei into a fierce embrace. Held Shen Wei, kissed his hair, and reveled in the hot breath against the crook of his neck, the shoulder bumping against his clavicle with bruising force. This they hadn't revisited, not since the night with the knife, when everything was exploding out of Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei had been trying to hold him together.

Shen Wei's shoulders were shaking. Zhao Yunlan held on more tightly. "It's okay. Just let it out." He was choking up himself, from the pain of seeing Shen Wei hurting so, but it wasn't the helpless, hopeless despair of fearing there was something broken between them that could never be fixed.

Ye Zun was gone—the threat of him, at least. What he had left behind—what he had become, that was something better than any of them could have hoped for. And Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei were still here, no longer avoiding this place or these memories. And despite everything Ye Zun had done to try and break the trust between them, they were so close that Shen Wei was letting Zhao Yunlan feel him cry, and taking some comfort from Zhao Yunlan holding him through it. He had one arm wrapped around Shen Wei's shoulders, having worked the other free to stroke his head. "It'll get better, baby. And I won't forget. I don't need to forget—don't want to. Because I remember…"

Zhao Yunlan drew a shaky breath, letting the familiar silky tickle of Shen Wei's hair against his palm ground him. "I remember how you came for me, when Ye Zun thought you couldn't. I remember how you did every impossible thing in the world to save me, and heal me, and I remember you made the mountains bloom in winter." He pressed a kiss to the top of Shen Wei's head, aching and grateful to feel Shen Wei's breaths evening out against the dampness of his t-shirt. "Show-off."

The tease earned him the feeling of lips quirking into his skin.

"So—thank you, love. For offering. But no. And I wish it didn't have to hurt—and, fuck, if I could take away your memories—you shouldn't have them, but—"

"I want them." Shen Wei's voice was rough and hitched as he lifted his head to look at Zhao Yunlan with red-rimmed eyes. His hands fisted in Zhao Yunlan's jacket. "To know how brave you were—to remember always what you would do for Haixing, and for Dixing as well. What you did to protect everyone, when I couldn't—when I couldn't, you came. I waited, and you came."

Zhao Yunlan felt a laugh bubble through the tightness in his throat, and he gripped Shen Wei's upper arms, holding on. "I did. And now I'm here. You don't have to wait, because I'm…" Here. In this place where everything had been darkness and pain. But now? Now he could feel his chest bursting with a grateful gladness even as his eyes were stinging with the tears he couldn't contain. "I'm here. With you. And you're with me."

Shen Wei nodded. "Always."

It was a single word, and a promise of a lifetime. It was everything bad made better, and everything worse overcome in time.

"Always."