Archive of Our Own

Xichen wakes up on a Tuesday morning and realizes he doesn’t clearly remember the last four months, three weeks, and two days of his life. There is before the accident, and there is the accident, flashes of the hospital, the police, and… this morning. There must have been funerals, but there's an empty space where any ritual could be.

Xichen wakes up, and the world is in color again. He hadn’t even realized he was viewing it in greyscale. He’s in the guest room of his brother’s home. He had picked out the rich teal paint on the wall and helped his brother paint the room. He had bought the bedspread as a gift, the ombre matching the walls almost as if the paint and the bedspread were meant for each other. If this were any Tuesday before four months, three weeks, and two days ago, Xichen would be delighted to spend time with his didi.

Not today. Not any of the days following the accident. Xichen is here because he cannot stand the emptiness of his own apartment. He’s here because he cannot function on his own right now.

Xichen has become used to hurting, but the pain of the last few months is a muffled one; the pain of remembering why he’s in this room, not his own, is piercing.  

As he sits on the edge of the bed, Xichen wants the color to leach back out, for the haze of not remembering to settle back over him. His heart pounds in his chest, but nothing happens except the vivid awareness of being awake and alive.

It's terrible. Yet, there is a routine to follow in the mornings, and despite the fresh-wound pain, he gets to his feet. Xichen dresses, stumbles out of his bedroom, and joins his brother in the sunroom for stretching and yoga. He knows that he’s done this almost every morning since he’s moved in with his brother, but it feels like he remembers it the same way he remembers a movie.  

Dutifully, he rolls out his yoga mat and settles in the lotus position, only to stare blankly at the window, trying to remember what he felt any other day since coming to stay in Wangji's guest room. Wangji and Wei Wuxian picked him up from the hospital. He's done this every morning with them, even the first. Xichen didn't even have a scratch on his body, so there was no reason not to join Wangji on the mat. 

Was it this difficult, then? Xichen can't remember.

“Are you all right, Xichen-ge?” Wen Ning asks, catching Xichen staring at him as he brings in their water bottles and hands them out.

“Déjà vu,” Xichen says, shaking his head. It's not a lie, but Xichen doesn't know the truth. “I’m fine.” Wangji switches on the Bluetooth speaker and turns on a quiet instrumental playlist. “Shall we begin?” Xichen asks, not wanting his brother or Wen Ning to question the I’m fine.

Wen Ning stretches with them, but as the brothers practice yoga, he starts quiet calisthenics. When Wangji finishes yoga and settles into the lotus position to meditate, Xichen stares at the windows, unable to follow him. What did he do when Wangji meditated? It’s a blank space inside his thoughts, almost as if he’d closed his eyes and missed a scene in the film.

Xichen pushes that uncomfortable absence away. Right now, he can’t meditate. Or doesn’t want to meditate. He's already uncomfortably present in his thoughts, and meditation seems like it would only further remind him how deeply asleep he’s been for the last few months.

Xichen sighs, and Wen Ning stops his crunches to sit up. “You’re back, aren’t you?” he asks, voice pitched low.

Wen Ning’s words startle Xichen and he blinks dumbly at him. “I didn’t go—” But he did, didn’t he? He’s been gone for a while. “How do you know?” 

“Ah.” Wen Ning rubs a hand across the back of his neck. “It’s hard to explain. It— I just know what it feels like after you lose someone close. I know what it looks like.”

Xichen doesn’t know Wen Ning very well. He's lost his sister, Xichen thinks. The very idea sends a spike of panic at losing Wangji, and he has to physically stop himself from reaching for his didi. Wangji's fine; he's deep in meditation.

Through the fog that Xichen has been in, he has the impression of a deep thoughtfulness. Wen Ning pays attention. There must be a million small details he’s picked up. He spends half the week at Wangji and Wei Wuxian’s home and, therefore, half his time around Xichen.

Xichen likes him. Wen Ning is quiet, devoted to Wei Wuxian, and a good friend to Wangji. No, not just friends. That would be rude to everyone. They’re all together; Xichen knows what a discreet threesome looks like. They fall into piles on the sofa. Just last night, Xichen found himself in the middle of them all, probably not for the first time. They’re so tender with one another.

They’ve been so tender with him. It was Wen Ning’s arm around Xichen’s shoulder as he pretended to watch the movie with the three of them and ended up half asleep, tipped over on Wen Ning's shoulder.

Tears well up in the corners of Xichen’s eyes, hot and heavy. His heart constricts, and the fresh-wound pain shifts to something sharper, something older—an infected wound laced open. Xichen’s hands fly up to cover his mouth as a sob breaks free.

Wen Ning folds Xichen into his arms like it's nothing and Xichen pitches forward. Moments later, Wangji rouses himself and is pressed to Xichen’s back. They’ve held him since Xichen moved in with Wangji and Wei Wuxian. They’ve cared for him, but he had not felt the depths of it, and this morning it undoes him. He sobs into Wen Ning’s throat.

Xichen misses A-Yao. He misses Mingjue. He needs them.

A keening wail echoes through the room, and Xichen only realizes that he makes the sound because his throat aches with the force of it.

What must objectively only be minutes later, but subjectively feels like decades, Xichen stops sobbing and pries himself away from Wen Ning’s grip, only to stumble back into Wangji when he’s unable to find his footing to stand. Dizzy, he sits down, legs splayed out on the yoga mat, with tears still falling down his cheeks.

Wen Ning kneels beside them. “Drink,” Wen Ning says as he twists the cap off Xichen’s water bottle and holds it to his mouth. “There we go, good. That’s it,” he murmurs, and Xichen feels a flush of confusion at the gentle words and soft praise. It feels good, maybe in ways it shouldn’t feel good.

Maybe nothing should feel good right now. How can anything feel good when Xichen hurts so much?

Wangji wipes Xichen’s face off with the edge of his sleeve when Wen Ning is finished making him drink. Xichen leans into the touch despite himself.

“We should cut this short this morning,” Wangji says as he drops his hand.

“No,” Xichen shakes his head even though it's still spinning. Usually, after he and his brother meditate, he leaves for a solo run while Wangji and Wen Ning lift weights. He still wants to go. Xichen needs the rush and exertion. He wants to feel his heart pounding in his chest. He can’t explain why, but from the look on his brother’s face, he’ll have to try.

“I’ll go with you. Wangji hates running,” Wen Ning says before Wangji can open his mouth.

“I can handle being—” Xichen stops himself. He doesn’t actually want to be alone right now. Wen Ning and Wangji exchange an unknowable look, and Xichen doesn't even begin to try to translate it. He needs to keep moving. Being outside sounds good. The impact of his feet on the pavement sounds grounding.

Wen Ning pushes to his feet and holds his hand down to Xichen. Xichen wordlessly takes his offered grip and hauls himself up to his feet.

“Don’t push yourself, ge,” Wangji says as they walk away.

Xichen doesn’t listen to him. He sets a punishing pace. Wen Ning keeps up without complaint. Distantly, Xichen knows that Wen Ning primarily strength trains, and he knows he's being an ass running as quickly as he is, but Wen Ning isn't even out of breath.

However, he stops Xichen from taking another loop around the neighborhood once they approach the 5k mark.

“Your brother will worry if I let you keep running. Wei Wuxian should be up now, and there will be breakfast.” Wen Ning catches Xichen’s hand, and Xichen doesn’t pull away as he’s towed gently back home. He doesn't want Wangji to worry any more than he likely has already.

Back home, Wen Ning pushes him into the bathroom to shower and prepare for the day. This, at least, Xichen can do without supervision.

At the breakfast table, Wangji piles toppings into his bowl of congee until Xichen finds himself laughing at his stubbornness. The sound feels unnatural in his mouth. Good. Weird. It feels like he shouldn't be allowed to laugh.

“I’m fine,” he says, unsure that it’s the truth. “Or at least I can feed myself, didi,” he chides. Wangji looks unsure, and Xichen has to admit that he has lost weight these last few months. “Fine, fine. I’ll take a second egg this morning,” he concedes.

"How about some chili crisp!" Wei Wuxian grins, almost maliciously, as he holds up his jar of homemade oil that's spicy enough to grievously wound a Lan brother.

"A second egg and maybe more fried shallots." Wangji smiles at him, and Xichen feels something unknot in his chest.

"I'll take some of that chili crisp." Wen Ning holds out his bowl to Wei Wuxian, who gleefully dumps a huge spoonful on top of the porridge.

The three of them fold him into their day, just as they've been doing, only this time Xichen is finally present. After breakfast, Wen Ning talks them into a strange card game that involves birds. It’s intricate enough that Xichen has to focus intently on what he's doing. Wei Wuxian plays games like he's out to obliterate his opponents.

After, Wei Wuxian drags them out for boba and dumplings at lunch. Xichen doesn’t feel like he’s in the way but worries about it in the afternoon. Who really wants their depressed brother/boyfriend’s brother lurking through their dates?

“I hope I’m not a… fourth wheel,” Xichen says as Wen Ning ropes him into helping prepare dinner. He knows if he were to bring it up with Wangji, his brother would dismiss the concern instantly. Not to be rude, but just being Wangji.

Is Xichen stopping them from… whatever they’d usually be doing? He knows when Wen Ning spends the night, he’s in the same bedroom with his brother and Wei Wuxian. He knows, too, about the trunk at the foot of Wangji's bed that he keeps locked. Xichen has—had? One of his own. And oh, that hurts to remember.

“A lot of things that have wheels have four of them.” Wen Ning shrugs.

Xichen raises an eyebrow as he glances at Wen Ning, forcing his thoughts away from what he's missing. This isn't about him right now. “When did you all last do whatever you normally do without me?”

“Last night.” Wen Ning stares back at him, a faint smile on his lips.

“We watched a movie last night while Wei Wuxian laid on our laps. I fell asleep on you.”

“Pretty typical date night.” Wen Ning shrugs again. “He’s just happy to have another person to pay attention to him. He likes that you keep his feet from falling off the sofa when you hold his ankles.”

Xichen frowns at the garlic he’s mincing as if it could hold any answers. “If you all would ever like me to leave the house—”

“We don’t,” Wangji cuts him off as he walks into the kitchen and fills a mug with hot water from the dispenser at the sink.

“Xichen-gege, we’ve been fucking the whole time you’ve been here,” Wei Wuxian chimes in as he comes to sling his arm around Xichen’s shoulder. “I know you know what sex is and that your brother has a lot of it."

Xichen sighs but gives his brother-in-law a one-armed hug. “Go away. You’re just going to eat the fixings before we’re even done with supper. Wangji, please, your husband.”

“Yes, Lan-er-gege,” Wei Wuxian singsongs as he slips away from Xichen. “Come show me what sex is.” He waggles his eyebrows lasciviously, and Xichen sighs again, but the distraction from his thoughts is welcome.

“If we need privacy, we will tell you, either myself or your brother,” Wen Ning says as Wei Wuxian drags Wangji out of the kitchen. “Your brother might not want to tell you, but I’ll make him.”

Xichen wonders what magic powers Wen Ning has to make Wangji do anything. Who can make Wangji do anything? It almost makes him smile, but he sighs instead. This feels so normal. It feels like any previous visit he’d made to Wangji and Wei Wuxian’s house. Xichen reaches for the ginger to peel and grate next.

Normal is bizarre after so long of whatever he’s been doing.

Normal is bizarre, and there are days Xichen wants the muffling pain, the grey. Not the vivid colors this household seems to be full of, the brightness can be a million tiny knives as Xichen tries to accept his new normal.

The same as always, Xichen wakes up and joins his brother for yoga. Or, when Wen Ning's over, yoga and working out. Wangji expects it, and it's hard to think about the weight of his grief as he pushes his body. He feels most at home with himself when he's running.

Wangji grumbles about the days Xichen runs alone but doesn't stop him, content that he won’t run into traffic or whatever other silent fears Wangji harbors about Xichen’s emotional state. Xichen doesn’t want to ask: knowing his brother, there is an itemized list. It's bad enough that Wangji and Wei Wuxian rotate their work schedules so someone is always working from home, and Xichen is never alone. 

The rest of the day is more complicated. Sometimes, he ends up sitting on his bed, and the next thing he knows, it's mealtime, and he's being dragged out of his room by his brother or Wei Wuxian, the same as before he woke up.

Except now Xichen is aware when the world becomes a colorless movie. Time seems to slow down as the color drains from his vision, and then he stops thinking of anything, and the film records a blank wall. It should be welcome. It isn't.

Xichen isn't sure what he does between exercise and meal times when he can't remember. He should know, but Wangji would only fuss if asked. On the other hand, Wen Ning never seems phased by anything Xichen has to say. He's easy to spend time with and easier to talk with.

“I don’t know what to do with myself,” Xichen says as he and Wen Ning start running their loop through the neighborhood. “I don’t know what I was doing with myself.” It's been five and a half months. He may not know what he was doing, but he never has to stop to think how much time has passed since— since A-Yao and Mingjue—

“Dissociating,” Wen Ning says so bluntly that Xichen almost trips over his feet. “While ostensibly reading or drawing. Wangji said you would clean a lot.”

“Well. Wei Wuxian makes such a mess,” Xichen deflects. He's thankful for the diversion from his thoughts.

Wen Ning looks unimpressed. “You want to be useful.”

“That’s not new to my—my—” But Xichen can’t bring himself to finish that sentence. Grief would be the simple conclusion, but it never feels like a big enough concept to explain his feelings.

Wen Ning says nothing as they turn the corner and head toward the park.

It’s not bad to want to be useful, but Xichen doesn’t say that. That would be arguing, and arguing about being useful feels… stupid. Maybe Wen Ning didn't even mean to imply that wanting to be useful was somehow a wrong way to feel.

That's more likely. Wen Ning isn't like that.

Xichen heads to his bedroom when they get home, and instead of grabbing his towel and heading to the bathroom, he’s drawn toward his desk and the sketchbook sitting out.

He doesn’t want to open his sketchbook for fear of what he’ll find there, but needs to know. He wants to remember. Xichen opens the book on his desk and stares into a violent scrawl of charcoal lines, ruins, and familiar faces.

He can feel the memory sink its teeth into him like the bite of the dogs Wei Wuxian is so afraid of. The impact, the— the breath rushes out of Xichen’s chest as he snaps the book closed.

“Breathe,” he says aloud into the empty room. “You’re supposed to breathe.” Breathe, not think of blood. Not think of breaking—that he didn't even have a scratch—Xichen sucks in a breath, then another in through his nose and out through his mouth. He’s good, he’s being good. This is what he’s supposed to be doing.

There are other things Xichen distantly remembers from a few brief therapy sessions he’d had and abandoned. He looks for circles in his room and traces them with his eyes until he feels like he isn’t about to lose himself. It doesn’t seem like he’s improving, but his breathing doesn’t worsen.

Gently, hands shaking, places the book on the shelves over his desk and reaches for a different sketchbook. One he knows to be empty. He lays this beside his charcoals but doesn’t sit down to draw.

Xichen has to keep moving. If he stops, he's going to lose his entire day again. If he stops, Wangji will come in at lunchtime, face drawn in concern, and try to lead him to the table like a child.

He checks the novel on his bedside table and flips open to the bookmark. It’s some mystery, something Wei Wuxian pushed into his hand. He remembers the plot, the old lady and her cats solving mysteries. Mindless, easy to predict, not violent. It’s book six, but Xichen doesn’t remember anything concrete from books one to five, even though they’re sitting on his bookshelf.

Dissociating. Xichen frowns as he sits down on the edge of his bed. Wen Ning isn’t wrong. He’s not sure reality and flashbacks, or the potential of flashbacks, are any better. Reality doesn’t feel good, but Xichen doesn’t want to slip away into a place where he doesn’t remember what he does from hour to hour in the day.

Xichen rubs his hands over his face. Right, he was supposed to shower. He’s still in his workout clothes. He has to keep moving.

“Ge?” Wangji pokes his head into Xichen’s room through the cracked door.  

“I got stuck on the way to the shower.” It feels like such a stupid thing to admit. Stuck. It sounds like something Wen Ning would say. Now Wangji will fuss.

“Come shower with me,” Wangji offers.

They haven’t done that in years. Not since Wei Wuxian came back into Wangji’s life. Xichen didn’t want to intrude, even when his brother invited him.

Xichen stares at Wangji. Wangji stares back at him.

“Your partners?”

“Have always known about us.”

“We’re not kids anymore,” Xichen says, unsure if he wants Wangji to push or back off. Maybe fussing wouldn't be terrible.

“We weren’t kids the last time we were together. I’ve never heard of a child in their twenties,” Wangji says with a faint smirk playing on his lips.

“No, we weren’t children. But it’s been a long time, Wangji. I don’t want to disrupt your life more than I already have.”

“Come shower with me, ge,” Wangji says, and it feels like an order, and Xichen wants to obey. It is so much easier than sitting on his bed, nearly panicking.

It’s strange to be naked with his brother again. Wangji looks the same as always. Wangji looks nothing like the bodies he’s used to being naked around. That’s… good. That’s good, Xichen decides. 

He allows himself to be ushered under the spray, allows Wangji to start washing him. This is nothing like what he’s used to doing in the shower with someone else. It still feels submissive. Or, at least, pleasantly passive as Wangji soaps down over Xichen’s back before turning him around to attend to his front. It soothes an itch under his skin that he's been trying to ignore.

Xichen’s body doesn’t respond with arousal, and he’s not sure how he feels about that at all. There’s pleasure in the touch of Wangji’s hands on his skin, but it doesn’t shift to arousal. Wangji, however, is half erect, and Xichen finds himself staring.

“Do you want to touch?” Wangji asks.

Xichen has no idea. He likes looking. He’s always liked looking. He just isn’t sure he wants to do more than look. Is it a betrayal of—

“No.” Xichen shakes his head before the silence grows too awkward. “I’m just admiring,” he says, giving Wangji a crooked little smile that’s more nervous than anything else. Xichen doesn’t know what he wants anymore, but he at least realizes he needs to think about this more before he accepts Wangji's offer.

Wangji leans over and kisses the corner of his mouth. Xichen shivers at the contact. “Go dry off then. I won’t be much longer. Stay here with me.”

More almost-orders that are easy for Xichen to obey. He leaves the water, finds his towel, and steals Wangji’s skin care products. More normality, even if it’s almost a decade out-of-date normality. It used to be their product. They’re the same bottles Wangji used back then, too. The same smells, wrapping him up in comfort.

Xichen smiles again as he stares at his face in the mirror and almost doesn’t recognize himself.

Later that week—five months, two weeks, four days, Xichen's clock reminds him—while Wen Ning is away for two weeks, Wei Wuxian coaxes Xichen to get out his xiao. The two of them spend the night riffing back and forth between traditional music and Wei Wuxian's arrangements of contemporary pop music. It's fun.

"Shufu would be horrified," Xichen says as he's putting the xiao away. "Pop music? Unacceptable."

"I bet that old man has hidden depths. I wouldn't put it past him to listen to some pop occasionally. Or maybe he watches trashy television?" Wei Wuxian's nose wrinkles up.

"Shufu loves wuxia dramas," Wangji and Xichen say at the same time.

Xichen smiles at his brother as Wangji stands beside him and rests a hand on his neck, massaging gently. Xichen is trying not to feel like these little touches are coddling him. They'd happened all the time when they lived together during college. He tries to accept them with the same comfort as sharing skincare products. An old normal. A new normal. Some combination of the two.

Xichen leans back into the touch, eyes closed. Before he knows it, Wei Wuxian is wiggling beside him on the sofa and claiming Wangji's free hand for his own.

"I—I should get ready for bed." No. This shouldn't be a new normal. It's fine, maybe when he and Wangji are alone, or Wei Wuxian is busy, but not when Wangji's partner is right here, obviously demanding attention. Xichen isn't selfish.  

"What, do I have cooties?" Wei Wuxian slumps over to lean into Xichen, all but oozing across the sofa into his lap.

Startled, Xichen laughs a little. It sounds forced. "Do all laps belong to you? Are you part cat?" He can't bring himself to push Wei Wuxian off him.

"It's free real estate," Wei Wuxian agrees.

"Does it bother you, ge?" Wangji squeezes the back of his neck and Xichen feels his face heat.

Xichen thinks that's a question for Wei Wuxian, which should be asked when Xichen's not there, so Wei Wuxian doesn't need to worry about offending him with his answer.

Wei Wuxian is melting into Xichen, treating him like a large body pillow as he makes himself comfortable. It makes it hard for Xichen to believe that he's really getting in the way of the two of them.

"No. It doesn't bother me." Carefully, Xichen wraps an arm around Wei Wuxian, who doesn't need the invitation to snuggle even closer. "It's just—" He feels Wei Wuxian tense and forces himself to continue. "You two already have Wen Ning."

How does he say I don't want to impose without saying it directly? It seems like the kind of thing he knew how to say at one point, the kind of tricky relationship building he had been good at navigating. He did, after all, maneuver A-Yao and Mingjue— he cuts that thought off before he finishes it. There was nothing successful in the way their relationship ended.

Xichen moves before the rest of his thoughts catch up with him. "I need to go to bed," he says, leaving Wei Wuxian half-sprawled across the sofa. "I have a problem with imposing, and I don't think you two need me getting in the way of your relationship. I'm sorry. I appreciate what you're doing for me. I know you care about me. Both of you, but I won't get between you two. Or with Wen Ning."

Many things that have wheels have four of them.

But four is a terrible number. Xichen flees to his bedroom and ignores his brother and Wei Wuxian's knocking.

At three in the morning, Xichen drags his suitcases out from under the bed. He can't sleep; he needs to leave. He's in his late 30s, for fuck’s sake, he can grow up and start living his life again. In his own house, where he won't fuck up his brother's life.

He starts with the desk, gathering the art supplies and his sketchbooks. The one he'd put away a few days prior slips out of his hand and drops to the floor, splaying open at a page from before. A-Yao and Mingjue leaning against each other on the sofa back in Xichen's home. They're both sleeping. It had been so peaceful and so lovely that there is a matching photo on Xichen's phone.

Xichen snatches it up off the floor as grief rockets around his body, finding every single raw nerve and sore spot, slamming violently into them again and again. Before he knows what he's doing, he rips page after page from his sketchbook out before throwing the remains against the wall.

The book hits a canvas print, and then the print lands on the floor with a thud as Xichen shreds the picture of A-Yao and Mingjue into pieces.

It's all his fault. What right does he have to swan into his brother's life, a miserable excuse for a man, and cause problems in his relationships? That's all he's going to do in the long run.

Fueled by his grief and the anger boiling through his veins, Xichen tears every page out of the half of the book he's holding. He wants to rip apart the desk, break the particle board, and rend it into small pieces. Ripping paper isn't enough.

"Ge—" Wangji's hands catch his shoulders as Xichen rips out the drawer and is about to fling it across the room.

It's three in the morning, and Xichen is having a temper tantrum in Wangji's house. His hands shake, but he carefully sets the desk drawer back where it belongs.

"I need to go. I have to leave. I'm sorry, Wangji." But Wangji takes him by the hand and leads him into the living room. Xichen resists when Wangji tugs him down onto the sofa. "Wangji, please." Xichen's voice cracks. Wangji forces him into an embrace, and Xichen starts to sob.

"I want you to stay." The soft words make Xichen cry harder, and the more he tries not to start wailing, the louder his sobs are. "I want you to stay. I don't want you to be alone. You deserve to be taken care of."

Xichen doesn't want to hear it. He covers his ears, tangles his fingers in his hair, and pulls until it hurts. When that isn't enough, he—

Wangji catches his fists in his hands and kisses his knuckles. The soft brush of his lips catches the violence raging inside of Xichen, and it dies as quickly as it came on.

"I want. I want them back. I want them back." Xichen knows he's screaming, but he can't stop himself. He struggles against Wangji's grip, trying to break free, angry that his brother won't let him go. It's all his fucking fault, and if he hadn't been so persistent and made two relationships into one, maybe he'd still have the men he loved most in the world.

"I know." Wangji wraps his arms around him and squeezes tight. Xichen takes a breath. He's supposed to breathe, right. He's—he's a fucking disaster. He deflates in Wangji's arms, useless, hysterical, and stupid. "Stay with me, ge. Let us help you. I know it hurts; I do."

Wangji's hand strokes down his spine, and Xichen closes his eyes and slumps into his brother. Wangji does know; he thought Wei Wuxian was dead, and hadn't Xichen done this very same thing while Wangji raged through his grief?

Xichen takes one shaky breath and another. Wei Wuxian came back, though, and that's not— Xichen saw—

"They're gone." Xichen's voice cracks. "They're gone. They're—" He starts to sob again, keening wordlessly and rocking in Wangji's arms. He cries until he loses his voice until his throat is raw, and his eyes are burning from the tears. He cries until he feels like there is nothing left inside of him, and then he cries even more.

At some point, a cool, wet cloth comes out, and Wangji wipes his face. At another, Wei Wuxian holds a lukewarm cup of tea to his lips and makes him drink.

The sun cracks the horizon. Wangji pries him off the couch and guides him into the main bedroom, and Xichen helplessly finds himself tucked between his brother and Wei Wuxian.

Wei Wuxian snuggles against his back and drapes an arm across his stomach. Wangji kisses Xichen on the mouth, dry but not chaste, lingering with warmth and love. Xichen almost starts crying again. He falls asleep instead.

When Xichen wakes, Wangji is gone, but Wei Wuxian uses him as a pillow while he taps at a brightly colored game on his phone.

"Good morning," he says, absently nuzzling Xichen's shoulder.

"It's afternoon," Xichen says, voice hoarse.

"You Lans need to learn how to sleep in." He sits up cross-legged and smiles down at Xichen. "How do you feel?"

Xichen considers this for a moment. "Like shit."

"Yeah, yeah. I bet." Wei Wuxian reaches out and brushes Xichen's hair back off his face. "Xichen-ge, you do know I like you a lot, right? That I'm happy to have you here?" Xichen snorts, but Wei Wuxian shakes his head. "I had Wen Ning and his sister when my life went to shit. I would have died without them," he says, uncharacteristically firm. "I would have… well, you know."

He stares Xichen down until Xichen sighs. "I know," he admits. "But I won't. If you and Wangji are worried—"

"Wangji always worries about all of us. I don't think you'll throw yourself off a cliff, but I want you to stay with us. I also want you to kiss your brother because, frankly, that is so hot—"

"Wei Wuxian!" It's too much to consider right now. His head is pounding, and he appreciates what Wei Wuxian is trying to do, but it's too silly when he still hurts this much.

"What!" He grins at Xichen, bright as the sun. Xichen closes his eyes. "I'm just saying your brother is guarded with who he loves, but there is no on or off button when he loves someone. There's just love, and I'm not possessive. It's okay, please. Don't leave because you think you're going to hurt us. You aren't hurting us."

Wei Wuxian is good at emotional whiplash, and Xichen can't summon the energy to say anything. Thankfully, he doesn't need to. Wei Wuxian takes his hand in his and keeps on talking.

"I taped together your sketches, but I don't have to give them back to you if you don’t want."

A soft, pained sound escapes from Xichen's mouth, and he shakes his head rapidly, fighting desperately not to start crying again.

"I'll keep them safe, and if you ever want them, Xichen-ge, just let me know."

Xichen closes his fingers tight around Wei Wuxian's but can't even bring himself to nod.

Wangji puts the guest room back together for Xichen, but Xichen doesn't go back to sleep in it for the rest of the week. Every time he tries, either Wangji or Wei Wuxian seamlessly interrupts him, and suddenly, he's between the two of them. He shouldn't let it keep happening, but he's helpless to stop them. Combined, the two are a force of nature, and Xichen is too tired to resist. It's not so bad not to be alone. Just—

The lead ball of his grief is still rolling along his bruised feelings and raw nerves, and while the anger dulls, it doesn't leave him. Xichen still wants to tear things apart, rip something to shreds, or break something precious. He doesn't know what to do with anger; it's not an emotion that rests easily under his skin.

Xichen takes longer runs. He'd run until he drops if left to it, but he's never left to it. Wangji drove out to find him the one morning he tried. He rockets back and forth between resenting his brother and being grateful he's not being left to rot alone in his too-big apartment.

You can talk to me, Wangji tells him, and Xichen wants to laugh in his face. Since when has his brother been good at having conversations? Apparently, since when it involves making someone else talk about their feelings.

Xichen doesn't talk or stop running, and the resentment comes and goes in waves. He tries to live his life. It doesn't seem fair that the world keeps spinning when he feels it should stop. It doesn't seem fair that he's still alive. And yet, he does want to live. He may want to shred his desk into tiny splinters, but Xichen does want to be alive.

He wants to be alive; he's just not sure about the day to day living. It's not that he's always desperately unhappy, but the happiness, the normality of life, feels like an ill-fitting suit. Too short at the ankles and wrists, too snug across his shoulders.

He doesn't leave Wangji and Wei Wuxian's room until Wen Ning returns from visiting his grandmother and a nephew of some sort. He's getting ready to move them to Shanghai and is just trying to figure out living arrangements.

Xichen is grateful for the excuse to sleep on his own again, even if he does take longer to fall asleep without Wangji's fingers kneading at his hip. 

The ever-present clock flips to six months.

He throws himself into his run with Wen Ning, almost daring him to say something, yet he is shocked when Wen Ning does.

"You look like you want to break something," Wen Ning says as they take a break from their morning run to get a drink in the park.

"Depending on how much my didi talks to you, you should know I already did," Xichen snaps, far sharper than he intended.

Wen Ning laughs, unphased. "He does try to respect your privacy when it comes to me, you know."

"But you're partners," Xichen points out. "Everything I knew, so did—" It's hard to say their names. He swallows them down and shakes his head.

"You're right," Wen Ning says, voice as mild as it always is. "He did tell me. He was worried, he is worried, Xichen-ge. But this isn't about him. You're angry, angry enough I can see it in your body when you run."

"And? All right. I'm angry. I'm a mess. We all know this. I don't see how talking about it will fix anything." Xichen drops down on a park bench, stretching his legs out in front of him. They won't be running more if Wen Ning is going to… say whatever he will say about anger.

Xichen feels almost dangerously not himself. The anger and the grief are so tangled up inside of himself that he doesn't know who he is anymore. It would be bad enough if A-Yao and Mingjue had just left him. He still wouldn't know how to define himself without them, but trying to define himself within his grief as well?

"It was a conversational opener, sure," Wen Ning says as he joins Xichen on the bench, stretching out alongside him. "You're more like your brother than either of you realize."  

It's Xichen's turn to laugh, but he takes the bait. "We are?"

"Stubborn, unwilling to talk about how you feel until it's too late," he lists off on his fingers. "Possibly both unwilling to feel your emotions. You're so afraid of the depth of them."

Xichen snorts. "I'm not usually like this!" Anger bleeds into frustration as he sighs out and deflates. "I don't know how to be angry. I am tired of grieving. I am— tired. I'm really fucking tired, Wen Ning."

Wen Ning nods along as Xichen talks. "Yeah," he agrees as Xichen finishes. "Yeah, I bet you are. It's really fucking exhausting to be grieving. One day, you'll be fine; the next, it's horrible, and you can't make any sense of when one will happen or the other. It fucking sucks."

Xichen laughs again. "I've never heard you swear."

"I've never heard you swear." Wen Ning nudges Xichen with his knee. "You don't have to talk to me. You don't have to talk to Wangji. All we want is for you to know we're here for you if you need us. You're allowed to need us."

It's not so far off from what Xichen once told Wangji. I'm your brother. I'm not ever going anywhere, no matter how much you hurt.

He gets it, he does. Except he doesn't at all. "How? What can any of you do with my anger? What, are you going to teach me to box? Convince me to return to my childhood martial arts training? Offer to let me hit you?"

"I'd likely kick your ass on the mat," Wen Ning says with a grin that sends shivers down Xichen's spine with its promise.

Then, rapidly followed by more waves of grief. Xichen misses that kind of smile directed at him, misses subspace; Xichen misses pain that made sense. He scrubs his hands over his face and shakes his head.

"I'd probably let you right now," he sighs.

Wen Ning shifts to look at him, and Xichen can't quite meet his gaze.

"I thought as much. Self-harm or masochism?"

Xichen can feel his face heat. "Masochist," he manages to say.

"Submissive?" Wen Ning asks as easily as he'd ask if it was raining.

Xichen wishes for a sudden sinkhole to open up and swallow the bench and him into the ground. "I'm no Wangji."

Wen Ning nudges him with his knee and then a little harder until Xichen manages to look at him. Wen Ning is smiling that sharp little smile. "Your brother looks pretty on his knees for me."

Xichen almost chokes.

"Call it repayment for how much he's talked to me about you." Wen Ning's smile stays sharp, and Xichen can't help the way his eyes automatically lower, and he sits up a little straighter.

He misses this, too. He hasn't even let himself think about it. There are too many other, more obvious things to grieve. Yet it's been there this whole time. The brightness between his brother and his lovers is hard to witness. The gentle undercurrents between the three of them taunt Xichen with what he no longer has for himself.

"All right. I'm willing to accept Wangji and I are more alike than it seems," Xichen says, smiling even as the grief roils inside his chest.

Wen Ning lays a hand on Xichen's thigh and squeezes. Xichen stares at his hand. Wen Ning is… big. Xichen is suddenly aware of how big he is and how strong that grip on his thigh is. "You looked like you needed to hit someone," Wen Ning says, "but maybe—do you need someone to hit you?"

It takes Xichen several alarming moments to remember how to breathe. That sounds like a terrible idea. It sounds like a wonderful idea. Grounding, something to anchor him inside his skin. He should not consider it at all; he is so unwell.

"Are you… offering?" Xichen doesn't take his eyes off Wen Ning's hand, which is still on his thigh.

"If you'd like. If not, your brother would offer if you asked."

Xichen doesn't want to ask. Doesn't think Wangji would. It sounds— Xichen laughs again, a little hysterical this time, and then reaches down to gently push Wen Ning's big, warm hand off his thigh. 

"I think that sounds like a terrible idea, and I want it so badly that I'm ashamed of myself." He forces the words out of his mouth. "I am. Unwell."

"Mhm," Wen Ning hums and Xichen can't even be angry at his agreement. "You know neither myself nor Wangji would let you go someplace dangerous."

That doesn't mean Xichen wouldn't try to go someplace dangerous. He wants to say yes, but he can't. "Do you know why I tried to destroy the desk in my room, Wen Ning?"

"Would you like to tell me, Xichen-ge?" Wen Ning folds his hands over his stomach and leans back on the bench.

"I was angry. I was—am—worried I would ruin Wangji and Wei Wuxian's relationship. I don't want to come between them. I don't want to be between you three." Xichen hates admitting that, but many of them keep trying to fold him into their relationship, and Xichen can't stand to let it go unsaid, either. "A-Yao and Mingjue are dead because of me."

"Jin Guangyao and Nie Mingjue are dead because of the consequences of their own actions, Xichen-ge," Wen Ning says firmly.

Xichen doesn't like that answer any more than he likes blaming himself.

"And everything else I said?" Xichen demands.

"When has your brother ever done anything he didn't want to do?"

"I see you didn't include Wei Wuxian in that." Xichen's surprised when Wen Ning doesn't roll his eyes. He knows he's being sulky.

"Xian-ge does what he wants, be damned the consequences. You know that as well as I do. Sure, he does a lot of shit he shouldn't do, but I don't think this is one of them. Look at me, Xichen," Wen Ning's voice sharpens, and Xichen is moving before he can think not to follow the command in Wen Ning's tone.

"Wen Ning—"

"Good boy," Wen Ning says, freezing Xichen in place.

Part of Xichen sits up and almost starts begging to be allowed to be a good boy. Being a good boy is much simpler than everything he's going through.

"This is a dirty trick," he says as he slinks back against the bench, forcing that part of him begging for more to back down.

"Mmhm," Wen Ning agrees. "My offer doesn't expire if you ever change your mind." He pushes to his feet and holds out his hand to Xichen. Xichen ignores it, and Wen Ning just shrugs. "Come on, let's get home before your brother comes to drag us back. I want breakfast."

Xichen spends the rest of the weekend on edge and snappish. He's all too aware of what he doesn't have any longer, what he shouldn't have, offer or not. He hides in his bedroom because he doesn't want to see all their soft touches, the kisses, the sly glances, the jokes he'll never understand. He hides in his bedroom so he doesn't have to see the way Wen Ning lays his hands possessively on both Wangji and Wei Wuxian.

He needs space. He wants to go home. Maybe there will be some clarity in the emptiness. Some peace he's missing.

"I'd like to spend the week back in my apartment," Xichen announces over dinner on Sunday. He's not asking permission to go home; he's not a child. "Wen Ning, could you give me a ride on your way home tonight?" Wen Ning has a series of 12-hour shifts back to back coming up, and he usually spends those nights at his apartment by the hospital. Xichen's condo isn't on the way, but it's not too far off.

Wangji takes a breath like he's going to say something but shakes his head and stops before he starts.

"Sure, Xichen-ge," Wen Ning says blandly. "I can take you home."

Xichen distantly remembers that Wangji and Wen Ning went to his place after the accident and packed up his things. He'd given them a spare key so Huaisang could go and collect his brother's things. Xichen wonders if he has. He…he should have reached out to Huaisang. He can't bear the thought of reaching out to Huaisang. 

He curls his hands into fists under the table. It's been six months. It's time to go home.

"Did—" Xichen takes a deep breath. "Huaisang— Mingjue's things. I don't remember if that got taken care of." Tears prick the corners of his eyes.

"Me and Jiang Cheng went and packed it up for both of you," Wei Wuxian says as he nudges Xichen's foot under the table. "It's in storage for when you're both ready to go through it all."

Xichen takes another breath and another, refusing to start hyperventilating and crying at the dinner table. "Thank you," he forces the words off his tongue.

Oh god, he hasn’t reached out to A-Su either. A-Yao was so careful not to leave much when he stayed with Xichen and Mingjue to keep up appearances of his marriage. Xichen is certain they loved each other for all that it wasn’t a real marriage. And now he's locked himself away, and he's not even sure where his phone is. He can't remember the last time he touched it.

"I have a proposal, ge," Wangji says, in his tone of voice when it's hard for him to speak and he's forcing the words out of his mouth. Xichen feels awful.

"Go on," Xichen says, his gut twisting in shame for a million different reasons.

"I promised when you were ready to go home I wouldn't try and stop you, ge, but I—"

"Ghosts," Wei Wuxian says softly as he lays a hand on Wangji's wrist. "Xichen-ge, there will be so many memories when you go back, and it hurts more than I can explain. Let us go with you."

Xichen closes his eyes, trying to decide if he's angry or grateful for these men who have so obviously spent so much time talking about him in private.

Yet, someone must care for him if he cannot do it himself. And Xichen isn't able to do it himself. What he wants and what he needs aren't the same.

"I want Wen Ning to come with me," Xichen says before he can stop the words from falling from his lips before he knows he will say them. Xichen glances at Wangji. "It's—"

"Fine," Wangji says as he reaches for Xichen, pulling his hand out of his lap and tangling their fingers together. "It's fine, ge."

"It is," Wen Ning says with a smile for Xichen. "I'll go, but we need to wait until my weekend. I won't be any help to you coming off a 12-hour shift."

Did he hurt Wangji? It feels like something that could hurt his brother, asking for someone else over him. "You worry so much about me, didi," Xichen says, his voice cracking as he starts to cry despite himself.

Is he asking too much?

Wangji sighs, fond, as he squeezes Xichen's wrist. "I hover."

"You hover!" Wei Wuxian's agreement is instant and enthusiastic enough that a laugh bubbles out through Xichen's tears. "A-Ning just lurks," Wei Wuxian says as he smiles across the table at Xichen.

"I do not lurk," Wen Ning protests.

"You lurk," Wangji says.

Wen Ning huffs, and Xichen clings harder to Wangji's hand. "I. I love you." He can't remember the last time he said that aloud to his brother.

"But I hover, and you need space." Wangji reaches out with his free hand to brush away Xichen's tears with his knuckle.

Xichen cries harder as he laughs, confused, heart aching, and more clear-headed than he's been in a while. He had wanted to muffle himself back up, to hide and lick his wounds. No one in this room will let him. He's a mess, he's a disaster, and while these three are often too bright for him to look directly at, they won't let him suffocate himself in his grieving.

You know neither myself nor Wangji would let you go someplace dangerous.

No one will let him, and maybe that isn't so terrible? His laugh trips into a sob, or the sob trips on the laugh, Xichen has no idea. He tangles his fingers with Wangji's as Wen Ning stands and comes to the other side of him, a big hand stroking over Xichen's hair and down to his neck.

"It's all right," Wen Ning says as he squeezes the back of Xichen's neck. "It's all right, Xichen-ge."

Xichen goes slack under the touch and allows himself to be held between Wangji and Wen Ning.

On Monday, Xichen turns on his phone. He answers all the easy messages first. On Tuesday, he cries curled up in bed with a message open to Huaisang that he never sends. On Wednesday, he does the same to A-Su. He's apparently messaged them both. There are details about the funerals he can't remember, and he can't bring himself to read. He's afraid of what happens if he does remember the first two weeks after—after.

There are… a lot of messages, actually. It returns to Xichen like remembered scenes from an old, unfocused, distant movie. How could he forget the 2 AM texts? Or the group chat, a bitter joke from Huaisang calling them all widows. Then, messages to ask where Xichen is and if he's okay. I will call your brother, Huaisang threatened. Xichen is sure he did because the group chat goes silent when he doesn't answer.  

Xichen messages the group chat on Thursday: I'm thinking of you. I'm going home tomorrow for a little while. He mutes their chats and turns his phone off. He already knows it will be a few days before he can engage with any response if they send one.

That night, for the first time making a choice for himself, he crawls into bed with his brother and Wei Wuxian and promptly sobs himself to sleep on his didi's shoulder.

Xichen sleeps through the night and morning, waking up as Wei Wuxian nuzzles into him. The clock reads 8 AM, and he knows Wei Wuxian's work alarm goes off at 8:45 AM, 15 minutes before he needs to log in for the day. He's missed working out with his brother but is so tired that he nestles back down with Wei Wuxian instead.

It's not a grey day, just pure exhaustion mingled with anxiety. Xichen goes home this afternoon. He has no idea how he feels about it, only that it seems like something he has to do.

He allows Wei Wuxian to pull him through the morning and breakfast with his brother. Wangji offers to help him pack an overnight bag.

"What? To go to my own condo, didi, please." Xichen smiles and then steps into his brother's arms. "You're fussing."

"Mn." But Wangji holds him tightly.

Wen Ning arrives with lunch for all of them from a hole in the wall near his apartment, which is Wei Wuxian's favorite. Xichen, for a moment, feels bad for taking Wen Ning away from his weekend with his lovers.

He also knows that his brother and Wei Wuxian are right. He can't face what's waiting for him at home alone.

Six months and five days after A-Yao and Mingjue died, Xichen walks back into the condo where he lived with Mingjue. The hallway closet is half empty. A-Yao's slippers are still on the shoe rack. 

Ghosts.

Wen Ning takes Xichen's hand in his own, silently squeezing his fingers as Xichen begins to cry.

There's no dust. Xichen doesn't know what Wangji told the housekeeper, but she still must come to clean occasionally. There's no dust; the condo doesn't feel stale but empty. It feels too full. Everywhere Xichen looks there is a memory, an ache, a knife slipped between his ribs as he forces himself to walk through the living room and down the hall to his bedroom. Just his now.  

It's like he never left. It's like he never left, except there's a blank place where Mingjue had been. The half-empty closets like a gaping hole inside Xichen's chest.

A-Yao's absence is less conspicuous. He spent a great deal of time with Xichen and Mingjue, but he didn't live here. Still, there are hints. An extra charger on Xichen's side of the bed, and a pair of reading glasses sitting on top of a dense historical novel.

Like a ghost himself, Xichen drifts into the bathroom. No one thought to empty the shower. No one could have known which bottles lined up on the countertop were Xichen's, Mingjue's, or A-Yao's.

His knees give out. Wen Ning catches him and guides him down to sit on the toilet, where Xichen reaches for a small bottle of serum and cradles it gently in his hand. The last person to touch this was A-Yao, on the morning he died.

Xichen's hands shake as he reaches for Mingjue's mustache oil. It smells like him. Xichen had forgotten the scent. Wen Ning catches the glass bottle before it shatters on the floor.

"It's all right, Xichen-ge." He places both bottles back on the counter. "Can you walk? Come," his voice is soft but firm. Xichen rises and allows himself to be led out of the bathroom, away from the bedroom, and into the living room.

On the sofa, Wen Ning wraps him in his arms. Xichen cries, fighting back the wails that he wants to let loose. This isn't Wangji's home. This condo has neighbors, and the walls are not so thick that Xichen can scream as freely as he desires.

Xichen wants to lie on his bed, close his eyes, and never wake up. He wants to surround himself with what's left of the pieces of his lovers and find them again in another life. Another part of him aches to scream, to rend, to break any reminders into pieces so they can't hurt him anymore. 

"I want them back," Xichen whispers so he doesn't scream. "They're gone. They're gone." He repeats himself over and over, unable to stop himself, fighting not to get any louder even as his voice rises in pitch.

Wen Ning rocks him back and forth. He's talking, but Xichen doesn't hear anything but the murmur of his voice, feel the soft thrum of his speaking. He cries until there can't possibly be more tears—there are always more tears—

"Xichen, shh. Open your eyes. Look at me." Wen Ning's hands cup Xichen's face and his thumbs brush away fresh tears. "Good boy," he praises as Xichen opens his eyes. "I need you to breathe."

Oh. Xichen is starting to hyperventilate again. He takes a weak breath.

"Deeper, come on, like this, that's my good boy." Wen Ning breathes in through his nose, deep and slow, and out through his mouth.

Xichen learned to do this as a child, but he follows along, pulled by the soft authority in Wen Ning's voice. He breathes.

Wen Ning's hands leave his face to his hands. "Here, bring your hands together and rub them until your palms warm," Wen Ning says gently as he starts the motion. "You don't need to meditate; just focus on the warmth. There we go, good."

The friction is distracting, warm. Xichen allows Wen Ning to coax thim through these motions because it feels good to obey. He keeps breathing, and his heart rate slows. Wen Ning talks him from rubbing his hands together to tapping his fingers.

Distantly, Xichen thinks he should feel patronized, yet Wen Ning is so gentle and kind that Xichen isn't ashamed. He returns to himself with one last deep breath and sits back, resting his hands on his thighs. Or at least, he mostly returns to himself. His body almost feels abstract, like he's floating just outside of himself.

"I want to try again," Xichen manages in a whisper. There are things he won't be able to touch or open. He knows that in his bones, but he knows he has to try what he can.

Wen Ning helps him up, and they return to the main suite and the bathroom. Xichen's hands are trembling as he reaches for his own face wash to wash away the tear tracks from his face. He hesitates but picks up a tube of A-Yao's eye cream and gently rubs it under his eyes. His skin feels raw and fragile, and the cream is cool and soothing.

Xichen opens the cabinet under the sink, picks out a travel bag, and carefully starts to pack a selection of bottles away to bring when he leaves. Part of him wants to never touch A-Yao's creams and serums, but another part needs to use them to have that connection. He takes Mingjue's soap, shampoo, and conditioner from the shower and tucks them into another bag.

Wen Ning gives him space as he heads back into the bedroom. In the closet, he picks up a duffle bag and starts to pack a few items of clothes. Nothing of A-Yao's would fit him, but he tucks a soft cashmere sweater into the bag and a hoodie of Mingjue's left in the wrong drawer that smells like his aftershave.

Xichen knows he won't spend the night here, but he will return. Xichen knows Wangji would keep him forever, but this is his home. The memories cannot feel like knives forever, can they? There will be new memories.

"When are your grandmother and nephew moving?" Xichen asks Wen Ning as he fills up the duffle with a few items of clothing, his favorite shirt and slacks, the twin cashmere sweater to A-Yao's.

Wen Ning blinks. "Ah, as soon as we can find a place big enough for us all."

There are two empty bedrooms in Xichen's condo. "You can stay here," he says, and the impulsive offer settles something twisting inside his stomach. "I'm sorry that's presumptuous, but I have the space and know that real estate here is so difficult."

Wen Ning looks pleasantly shocked, and it feels good to have surprised him. "Your nephew—"

"A-Yuan." Wen Ning smiles and reaches for his phone to show Xichen a picture of a grade school boy with a bright smile and messy hair.  

"And your grandmother. You can stay here. You can take the main suite. I’ll move into my studio space.” Xichen has, after all, spent half of the last six months living with Wen Ning, it should be easy.

"That's a very generous offer, Xichen-ge." Wen Ning tucks his phone back in his pocket as he regards Xichen, and Xichen tries not to shrug.

It seems like the easiest solution for everyone. Fill the house with new memories, help a friend who has spent so much time helping him.

"You're going to tell me I'm being impulsive, and you're not wrong." He slings the bag over his shoulder and makes his way out of the bedroom to the studio to pick out a few books that aren't Wei Wuxian's cozy mysteries. "I like children, grandmothers like me, I could help care for them. Even if it is only until you find a place that suits you all."

Xichen glances at the art supplies tidily organized throughout the room, unsure when he'll return to creating anything more than angry sketches in a book. It would be easy enough to turn his studio into a bedroom for himself. Not to escape the ghost of Mingjue and A-Yao's memories, but to distance himself from the most painful ones.

"If Popo and A-Yuan like you… Although if you impress A-Yuan, I'm sure you'll have Popo's heart," Wen Ning says after a while. "They're coming out for the New Year; after that, we’re going to look at a few places."

Xichen's chest seizes at the thought of making it through the New Year, briefly forgetting about how one would impress an 8-year-old without lavish gifts. Will anyone expect him to attend parties? He and Mingjue always threw one, it's too late to start planning even if he felt up to it.

"It's January, isn't it?" The calendar on the wall still reads July.

"Yeah," Wen Ning says, laughing softly. "It's January."

It takes considerable effort for Xichen to walk to his calendar. He strokes his fingers gently across the carefully written Date Night in July and then takes it off the wall to rest it on his desk.

"I don't want to spend the night here," he admits. "Not yet. You—you all were right. There are too many memories here, and I'm not ready. I mean it, though, about your family coming here. Even if I stay with Wangji. I own the condo outright, and it's a shame to keep it empty when you could use it."

"I know you mean it," Wen Ning says, nodding. "I'll introduce you all and see how it goes. Have you lived with an eight-year-old when you weren't a child yourself?"

Xichen laughs a little. "I can imagine they're a handful."

"Even as sweet as my nephew is, yes, he is. He's getting too much for Popo on her own." Wen Ning takes the duffle bag from Xichen, and Xichen allows it. It feels… nice to be taken care of, for once. Not stifling. "Do you want to go back to Wangji's?"

"Not really. Maybe a hotel for the weekend. You don't need to come with me if you'd like to go back to your partners. I hate to keep you, and if I'm not here, you won't have to gently coax me out of hysterics."

"They're not hysterics, Xichen."

"I always know you're serious with me when you drop the -ge," Xichen says with a faint smile, knowing the deflection won't work on Wen Ning.

"You're grieving, not hysterical. It's a big difference." He nudges Xichen. "Anyway, you like it when I gently and firmly tell you what to do."

"You said that so I wouldn't argue with you," Xichen says, trying not to laugh. His head is pounding from crying, and laughing will only make it worse.

"And it worked," Wen Ning says, a little smug. Xichen can't blame him.

"Would you let me be alone?" He turns the conversation back to the hotel instead of trying to argue the nuances between grief and hysterics. Maybe he could find one with a pool. He heads back to the bedroom, leaving Wen Ning to trail after him once more.

"I would. Your brother will sulk, but that's fine. It won't hurt him."

In the bedroom again, Xichen stares at the kneeling cushion tucked under the bed and places the duffle bag on top of the locked trunk at the foot of the bed. The offer Wen Ning made in the park rings in his ears. Maybe, the fact that Wen Ning would let him go off alone… It’s the right answer. Xichen places his duffle on the bed and turns to Wen Ning.

"Wen Ning, would you like to come with me? I can book someplace with a pool and a proper fitness room for you. To thank you for everything you've done for me over the last six months."

"A pool, you say?" Wen Ning returns the smile, his eyes crinkling at the edges. "Does room service come with this deal?"

Xichen takes a deep breath. “It could. I could serve you,” he manages to say, although service isn't quite what he wants. “I— the offer you made in the park.” He looks up and meets Wen Ning’s look, expecting him to say no.

Wen Ning’s answering smile is sharp enough to make Xichen stand at attention. “I’d like that, Xichen. Is that all you want, is to serve?”

“I want to hurt,” Xichen whispers as he closes his eyes. “I—it. I miss it. I’ve been trying not, I don’t—” He has no fucking clue how to explain anything to Wen Ning. “I’m so far away from my body right now,” he finally manages. His morning runs are the only thing keeping him tethered.

When he got like this before, A-Yao would drag him back into his skin with a vicious intensity. Mingjue would hold him down and fuck him back into his body as hard and fast as Xichen needed. That’s too much right now, and Xichen knows it. But pain, submission.

“Yeah, you are, aren’t you? Sweet boy, come here.”

Neither A-Yao nor Mingjue would talk to him like that, and it helps so much and feels so good. Xichen takes a breath and steps to Wen Ning. Would A-Yao begrudge him this? Does it matter when he’s not here?

Frustration and need bubbles up and over, and Xichen stands before Wen Ning with tears in his eyes. “Please,” he whispers. He doesn’t even know what Wen Ning is like as a dom, only that it feels right.

Xichen knows Wangji, knows him better than maybe even Wei Wuxian and Wen Ning do, and he knows his didi would treat him with kid gloves. He’d be so careful with Xichen, and Xichen doesn’t want or need careful right now. Wen Ning is gentle with him, but he’s direct and blunt.

“Please,” Xichen repeats as Wen Ning strokes his hand over Xichen’s cheek and back to fist in his hair, pulling his head back sharply enough that Xichen gasps.

“Tell me what you need, Xichen.” Wen Ning pulls Xichen forward, whispering the words in his ear.

New memories. Not just in this condo but in his body, in his skin. Tears well in his eyes, grief and desire pooling together in a terrible ache inside his chest.

“I’m going to fall apart.” It’s not the answer Wen Ning asked for, but Wen Ning just laughs.

“I know you will. Tell me what you need.” Wen Ning tugs his head back again, and Xichen groans.

“I want to feel like myself again.” Xichen isn’t sure Wen Ning can do that for him. “I want you to hurt me. I want to kneel for you.”

“Good boy for me, shh, that’s okay, you can cry.” Xichen hadn’t even realized he was crying again. He feels like an endless well of tears. “I can make you hurt, make you feel good.”

Wen Ning releases his hair and wipes his face off once again. “Not tonight, though. Not here?”

Xichen shakes his head rapidly. “Not here.” Not yet. Someday, sooner rather than later. With Wangji, he thinks, and maybe Wen Ning. It will take time for Xichen to reclaim this space as his own.

“That’s what I thought. Come on, sweet boy, we can finish packing and stop by my place to pick up a few things.” Wen Ning caresses Xichen's cheek with his knuckles and Xichen takes a deep breath to pull himself together.

Xichen leaves his condo lighter than he felt when he stepped over the threshold. There is a lingering sense of guilt over the scene with Wen Ning, but the anticipation overrides the worst of it. He’s allowed to have, to make, a new normal. He’s allowed to keep living a life that feels good. He has to believe it before everything turns grey again.

Wen Ning lives in a tidy, efficiency apartment, and it doesn’t take long for him to grab something to swim in and a small suitcase from under his bed. Xichen’s heart skips several beats as Wen Ning opens it to display a tidy collection of toys.

“I don’t need much, with Wangji buying—”

“Anything you even suggest that you want?” Xichen smiles. “It’s a Lan family problem. I— should have offered to let you look at what I had.” Except, he isn’t sure he would have been able to handle seeing his collar. “Maybe sometime in the future.”

Wen Ning gives him a knowing look. “Whenever you’re ready, Xichen-ge.”

Xichen expects it will be a… while before he’s ready to confront the collar and the memories locked away at the foot of his bed. “What you have looks good,” he says as he glances at the black hemp rope and floggers at the top of the suitcase. “I—I’m not sure I want sex,” he adds.

Or, he does want sex, but not right now, and he’s not sure about sex with someone new. It’d be different if it was Wangji.

“I don’t usually fuck anyway. I leave that for your brother and Xian-ge,” Wen Ning says, grinning at Xichen when he blushes. “I won’t be bothered if you get off, though.”

It’s been at least a decade since Xichen had to negotiate anything like this. It feels so strange. He doesn’t particularly want to do it, but at least a few things need to be said.

“I do want those floggers, though.” Xichen trails his fingers over the leather, imagining the snap and bite of it against his back.

Wen Ning bats his hand away, and Xichen shivers at the promise. “Mm, I bet you do. Tomorrow, if you’re a good boy.” The words buzz under Xichen’s skin as they head to the hotel and check-in.

Once at the hotel, they spend so much time in the pool and spa that Xichen's fingertips are wrinkled when they return to their room.

"How do you feel about hamburgers?" Xichen asks once they've both showered.

Wen Ning blinks at him. "You're not a vegetarian?"

"Only when I'm with Wangji." Xichen reaches for the room service menu. He's not been hungry for anything in so long and feels ravenous after being in the pool. "I need french fries, too. Order whatever you want, please."

"What other secrets will I get to find out about you?" Wen Ning sits side by side with Xichen on the edge of his bed as they go over the menu.

"I don't have many," Xichen says, instantly realizing that's false. "Or at least, I don't feel like I have many. You'll almost certainly get to see me cry again this weekend."

"I don't mind that, Xichen-ge. Although, I would like to make you cry for pleasure's sake."

Xichen shudders at the thought and, flustered, hums a soft acknowledgement of Wen Ning's words before returning to the menu. They both settle on a burger and fries with dairy-free chocolate shakes.

It's not something Xichen would have done with either A-Yao or Mingjue. It feels silly and frivolous; it is delightful. There is a table they could both sit at to eat. Instead, they sit side by side in one of the beds, carefully balancing the tray over their laps, watching a reality singing competition together.

Warmth seeps into Xichen's skin as he leans into Wen Ning's side. He's exhausted. It slams into him all at once while he's in the middle of a fry. He yawns hugely and almost upsets the tray on their laps. Wen Ning's quick hands stop one of the milkshakes from spilling across the pristine white bedspread.

"You've had a big day. Let me tuck you in for the night, Xichen."

Xichen lifts the straw to his lips without a second thought, drowsy and content. "I like it when you just call me Xichen," he murmurs, handing the now-empty glass back to Wen Ning. "I like it when you call me boy," he says in a yawn. He likes the idea of being tucked in, too.

Wen Ning huffs a soft laugh as he climbs out of bed and takes the room service tray outside for the staff to collect later. "There's a secret for me: you get honest when you're sleepy."

"I'm always honest," Xichen lies as he slumps down in bed when Wen Ning takes the tray away, stretching out to take up as much of the bed as possible.

"You'll be honest with me tomorrow, won't you?" Wen Ning sits on the edge of the bed and reaches out to brush Xichen's hair, still damp from a shower, off his forehead.

Xichen cracks open his eyes and looks up at Wen Ning. "I will, sir," he promises.

"Oh, that's sweet. I like that, Xichen." He pulls the blankets around Xichen's shoulders and leans down to kiss him on the forehead. "Sleep well."

Xichen is out within seconds.

They both sleep in the next morning. Xichen wakes up around 8 AM, rolling over to see Wen Ning quietly, rapidly tapping away at his phone. At first, Xichen thinks he's texting before realizing that it's some kind of fantasy fighting game.

"I would have never guessed you started your mornings with video games. Good morning," Xichen says with a yawn.

"I end my day with video games, too. Good morning, Xichen." Wen Ning doesn't look away from his phone, but the promise of Xichen's name, unadorned in Wen Ning's mouth, is enough to make Xichen shiver. “Why don’t you go freshen up? We’ll order breakfast and stretch before I get my rope out.

“Oh, yes, sir.” Xichen’s skin starts to buzz again. He hadn’t expected they’d start so early. If he wasn’t lying down, he’d sink to his knees. Part of him wants to beg for what he’s already being offered. He’s still sleep-warm and muzzy; it’s almost easy to ignore the jolt of guilt that tries to gain hold of his thoughts.

Xichen doesn’t rush through his morning routine in the bathroom. It’s important to him to present his best self—which isn’t that great right now, to begin with—to Wen Ning. He's in rumbled linen sleep pants. His eyes are red-rimmed with dark circles under them. It’s not attractive.

He can’t think too much, not right now, or he’ll ruin this for himself. He dabs cream under his eyes and leaves the bathroom. There’s a towel in the largest open space on the floor, and Xichen doesn’t need to be told to kneel beside it.

Wen Ning places his phone face down on the dresser, soft music coming out of the speaker as he turns to Xichen and smiles. “Oh, aren’t you pretty on your knees.”

“I don’t feel pretty,” Xichen makes himself say. Wen Ning had asked him to be honest. Xichen doesn’t want to, but he’s scared the scene will go wrong if he doesn’t, and he needs this.

There are more things Xichen isn’t saying, but I don’t feel pretty is all he can get out of his mouth. I don’t feel good. I’m scared. I feel guilty. I miss A-Yao and Mingjue. What if I start crying at you? are all packed into I don’t feel pretty.

Wen Ning lays two fingers under Xichen’s chin and tips his head back. “It’s not up to you to decide that, now, is it?” The softly spoken words melt into Xichen’s brain, as soothing as any cream or lotion.

“I don’t want to think. I’m so tired, sir,” Xichen whispers as he stares at Wen Ning and his kind, soft brown eyes.

There isn’t any cruelty in them, no sharp edge, nothing cold and calculating like Xichen’s used to seeing at the start of a scene. It’s comforting. Xichen couldn’t stand for this to be anything like what he’s used to right now. It’s why he’s here with Wen Ning and not Wangji and his possessive I know what’s the best energy.

Xichen doesn’t want to be owned right now. He wants to feel free. He wants to feel like himself. 

“I know, sweet boy. Let me take care of everything, take care of you. Come, stretch for me. Make sure you’re limber before I get the rope out. Breakfast will be up soon, and then I’ll help you get out of your head.” Wen Ning cups Xichen’s cheek before pulling back to give him space.

Content with a command to follow, Xichen begins to stretch. He focuses on his upper body, slowly stretching his shoulders and chest, unsure how Wen Ning plans to tie him. Xichen holds tight to that lack of knowing, the anticipation, trying to ensure he doesn’t get tangled up in his thoughts and anxieties lurking on the other side of desire.  

Xichen jumps as Wen Ning lays a hand on his shoulder as he’s stretching his hips.

“Easy. I didn’t mean to startle you. Finish up and come get breakfast.” He gently ruffles Xichen’s hair, and Xichen blinks at the strange, unfamiliar contact before he smiles shyly at Wen Ning.

“Yes, sir,” he says, answering the playful touch with a dip of his head so he can look up at Wen Ning through his eyelashes.

“Flirt,” Wen Ning laughs, and Xichen’s smile crinkles the corners of his eyes even as his heart skips several terrifying beats.  

It’s difficult to finish stretching as Wen Ning settles down at the small table and places a pillow for Xichen to kneel beside him. Knowing that Wen Ning is watching him now, it’s hard to move from his hips to his hamstrings. Xichen is a good boy. He doesn’t rush, and when he finally sinks to his knees on the pillow, he’s loose-limbed, limber, muscles and body warm and ready for whatever Wen Ning pleases.

Wen Ning rewards him with a segment of an orange, sweet and bright on his tongue. Xichen opens his mouth for a second bite, and Wen Ning carefully feeds him the entire orange.

“You look surprised, Xichen,” Wen Ning says between bites of his breakfast.

Xichen licks his lips, chasing after the bright taste of citrus. “I’m hungry,” he says. “It feels like I haven’t been hungry in years.”

“That’s good, that’s wonderful.” Wen Ning passes him a bite of baozi filled with pork and cabbage. Xichen wants to shove the whole thing in his mouth but allows Wen Ning to set the pace and eats in delicate, measured bites. “You deserve to enjoy yourself, Xichen.”

With his mouth full, Xichen can’t answer. Wouldn’t know what to say if he could. Instead, he finishes the baozi in pieces and then sips from the offered soymilk, careful not to spill as Wen Ning doesn’t allow him to hold the cup.

“I wore A-Yao’s collar,” Xichen says, knowing it doesn’t follow Wen Ning’s comment. “For years. I haven’t done this for anyone but A-Yao for years.” Xichen stares at the plaid flannel of Wen Ning’s sleep pants, tracing the lines with his eyes in an effort not to start panicking.

Wen Ning strokes his fingers through Xichen’s hair, nails scratching over his scalp. He doesn’t try to force eye contact. “When I moved to live here, to be with Xian-ge and Wangji, I was so scared jie would be mad at me for leaving what was left of our family, but Popo wouldn’t come with me until A-Yuan was older. She told me I deserved to have a life of my own. She told me I was just a boy and wasn’t old enough to raise a child. That my sister shouldn’t have had to raise me.”

Xichen raises his head and reads the grief on Wen Ning’s face. He reaches for the hand in his hair, holding it gently.

“Sometimes I think she’d still be alive if she hadn’t been trying to take care of the whole family alone, but—” Wen Ning shakes his head and squeezes Xichen’s fingers. “We can’t get wrapped up in the what-ifs or what the people we loved would think about our lives now. We can only do our best to live what’s ours. That’s not a betrayal of their memories, Xichen.”

“I don’t know that I believe that, not yet,” Xichen admits as he clings to Wen Ning’s hand. “I’m trying. I wouldn’t be on my knees if I wasn’t trying.”

“You don’t need to convince me, Xichen. You don’t even need to convince yourself. You’re hungry again, for food, for kink, it doesn’t matter why. Let yourself be hungry; let yourself be fed.”

Wen Ning holds another bite of food to Xichen’s lips, and Xichen eats. Bites of food mixed with soft tugs to his hair and gentle touches, but no more words. Wen Ning coaxes him out of his thoughts with touch and taste. Hints of pain, bright bursts of flavor.

Xichen wants more. Carefully, he gathers all his hesitations and fears and imagines putting them aside, safe in a box he can return to later. Anxiety twists his stomach, and he lays a hand on Wen Ning’s thigh.

“Rope, please, sir?” He knows that will help quiet his mind more than this careful hand feeding.

“Good boy for asking. Get the rope out while I go wash my hands. Undress when you have it.”

Xichen shifts back to give Wen Ning room to move around him and waits for him to have walked away before he stands and fetches the small suitcase. He brings out the rope, finds a pair of emergency scissors, and lays them on the table. It’s easy to strip off his sleep pants and toss them aside, easy to be naked with the rope so close at hand. He folds his arms behind his back and waits.

“Do you want a safe word?” Wen Ning asks when he returns and picks up one of the lengths of rope, snapping it open at the bight.

“Not really,” Xichen says, not shrugging only because A-Yao would have never tolerated it, and the training is too ingrained.

Wen Ning laughs. “Too bad,” he crooks his finger, and Xichen walks forward. “Stop is still a safeword.” He grins, and Xichen allows himself to sigh, one that fades on his lips when Wen Ning takes Xichen by the chin and forces him to look at him directly. “You will tell me to stop when you need to, Xichen.”

Xichen wonders how sadistic Wen Ning is when he’s so gentle and so kind. He’s seen flashes of it. Yet, staring into Wen Ning’s eyes, the sharpness in his voice, Xichen knows he's sadistic enough to match him.

A jolt of desire flashes down Xichen’s spine, and he swallows hard. “Yes, sir. I cannot promise how quickly I will know today. I am still—” Xichen presses his lips together. “I’m a mess,” he says with a pained smile.  

“You are,” Wen Ning agrees calmly as he steps forward to bring Xichen’s hands to the front of his body and fold his fingers into loose fists. “But you also need this,” he says once his hands are in place. “Now close your eyes, and let me tie you. I’ll tell you how and when to move. Be a good boy, elbows tight to your side.”

There’s no room for argument when they both know how much Xichen needs this. He closes his eyes obediently and moans as the rope drags across the skin of his wrists. Wen Ning binds them together and draws Xichen’s hands up so his knuckles rest at the base of his throat. The rope goes over his shoulder and across his back.

“You’re easy,” Wen Ning laughs as he begins to tie Xichen’s arms to his chest, looping the rope about his body. “Look at you, so eager to please, so sweet.” The hemp is coarse as Wen Ning moves about Xichen, turning him to and fro to secure the tie.

The drag of the rope over his back as Wen Ning ties him draws more soft sounds from Xichen’s mouth. He’s missed this. His skin missed this. It doesn’t take more than those two passes about his body for Xichen’s arms to be helpless. Wen Ning moves quickly and efficiently with the rope. He works it around Xichen another two times before drawing the rope over his back over the unadorned shoulder.  

No amount of meditation or running could ever bring Xichen the stillness that the black hemp rope hugging his body does. Each twist and drag of it over his back and arms quiets his mind until there is nothing left but blessed emptiness and the tight hug of rope and brush of Wen Ning’s fingers. Xichen can feel his heart rate slow, his breathing evening out, and if he wasn’t so fucking tired of crying, he could cry in relief.

“Thank you,” Xichen whispers. “Thank you,” his voice cracks, and he sways into Wen Ning’s arms.

“You’re welcome, Xichen.” Wen Ning strokes Xichen’s back over the ropes and down his sides.

Xichen’s eyes are still closed when Wen Ning hooks his fingers into the bondage, and suddenly, Xichen’s being pulled forward, off balance. He doesn’t fight. He pitches forward and trusts Wen Ning not to let him fall. He relishes the pull, the tension of the rope digging in—leaving marks—the helplessness.  

Wen Ning is strong, he’s so fucking strong, and Xichen lets go; he allows Wen Ning to push and pull him around like a doll. He drifts, sinks out of his mind and into his body, and is, maybe for the first time in over six months, at peace.

He whines when Wen Ning stops dragging him around, not wanting it to stop. Wanting Wen Ning’s hands on him longer, but he doesn’t have to wait. Wen Ning grabs his hair and pushes him back against the wall as he forces his head back.

“How much pain can you take?” Wen Ning asks, voice harsh in Xichen’s ear.

“As much as you want to give me.” Xichen doesn’t even need to think. “Please. I’m not— I mean it. I’m not lying, sir.”

“If I slapped you?”

Xichen doesn’t answer in words. His body jerks under the press of Wen Ning against him, and he whines, high and needy in the back of his throat. He’s about to beg when Wen Ning pulls his hand back.

The slap cracks across his cheek, and Xichen’s breath leaves his chest in one exhalation. “Again, please, sir,” he begs, unselfconscious.

In the very back of Xichen’s mind is a memory of a thousand slaps, of A-Yao dragging him down and—

Wen Ning’s hand strikes the other side of Xichen’s face.

“Thank me,” Wen Ning demands, his voice mild.

“How? Anything. Sir. Thank you. Thank you for slapping me.” Xichen would sink to his knees and kiss Wen Ning’s feet if that’s what he wanted. He’d beg for more.

“You sound so beautiful when you’re desperate, Xichen.” Wen Ning meets his gaze and smiles, sharp and beautiful, with such care in his eyes that it almost brings Xichen to his knees regardless of the pressure of Wen Ning’s weight against him.

No one’s ever looked at him like that. It’s confusing, it hurts, and Xichen can’t breathe. Nor is he given the chance. Wen Ning drags him forward, and Xichen moves, crying out as the rope bites into his back, and he’s all but thrown forward. He hits the bed with a bounce and lays on his stomach, where he lands, unable to move, unwilling to move without direction.

Wen Ning gives Xichen no time to slip back into memories or thoughts. He kneels on the edge of the bed and strokes his hand up Xichen’s flank to the curve of his ass, and starts to spank him.

There is no gentle build-up. Wen Ning’s hand stings as he works up and down over his ass and thighs. There isn’t enough space between blows for memories to come crawling into the corners of Xichen’s mind. There isn’t room for Xichen to feel anything but the pleasure of the pain.

Xichen keeps begging and keeps thanking Wen Ning for the pain. Wen Ning praises him with tender words, even as his hand cracks down over reddened, hypersensitive skin.

“You look so pretty for me,” Wen Ning says as he rakes his nails up over Xichen’s ass, making him cry out and jerk on the bed. “So flushed, so sensitive. Does it hurt, sweet boy?”

“Y-yes,” Xichen gasps, not even trying to move or get away. “Yes. sir, please.” He’s not even sure what he’s begging for now.

“Yes, sir, it hurts?” Wen Ning asks patiently as his hand gentles, and he pets the achingly hot skin of Xichen’s ass.

Xichen almost laughs. “Yes, sir, it hurts,” he whispers. “Do it again, please.” He is begging for more. Greedy. Hungry. Wen Ning rakes his nails down the opposite side of Xichen’s ass, and Xichen muffles his cries, pushing his face into the coverlet.

His face is still mashed to the bed when Wen Ning rises. Xichen doesn’t try to track him; he lies still. He waits. He waits, and he’s rewarded when Wen Ning comes back and drags the soft leather falls of the flogger over his back, down his spine, over the now tender skin of his ass and thighs.

The flogger doesn’t hurt as it lands on his shoulder, thudding between the rope lines. It doesn’t hurt on his shoulders, but when Wen Ning snaps the edges of the falls against his ass, Xichen pushes his face down into the bed to stop from crying out loud enough that someone in another room could hear him.

Time stops. It ceases to have any meaning at all. It could be minutes or hours as Wen Ning flogs him. Xichen knows nothing, but the pain, the sting, the crack of leather between gaps in the rope as even his back grows hot and flushed under the impact of the leather. Xichen takes everything he’s given, the agony of pain blooming into pleasure. The sensations filling places inside him he didn’t realize had been empty and aching.

Finally, just as he’d expected from the start, he begins sobbing.

Wen Ning stops to guide Xichen up to sit on the edge of the bed. He doesn’t want it to stop, and he whines pitifully. “Sir—”  

“Hey, hey, pretty boy, look at you. I bet you feel so good, don’t you? We’re just repositioning.” But Wen Ning also makes him drink a cup of lukewarm water and carefully checks his arms, fingers sliding under the rope to feel the temperature of his skin. “I’ll give you a little more, don’t fuss.”

Xichen stops whining immediately as he stares at Wen Ning with unfocused eyes.

Wen Ning rewards him with another set of slaps that set Xichen’s head spinning. “The things I want to do to you, Xichen. You’re so wrecked; how far would you let me take you?” He looks at Xichen like he intends to devour him, and Xichen wants to offer himself up by the throat for the taking. “Not tonight.” Xichen flinches as he expects another slap, but Wen Ning cups his face in both hands. “You are such a gift.” Xichen starts to shake his head, and Wen Ning holds his face tight. “No thinking. Say, thank you, sir.”

“Oh.” But that’s not what Xichen was asked to say. “Thank you, sir,” he whispers.

“You’ll let me do this again, won’t you?” Wen Ning gently brushes away Xichen’s tears, which nonsensically makes him want to cry harder.

“Yes, sir. Yes. I—” He hadn’t wanted to get in the way of his brother, Wei Wuxian, and Wen Ning. He’s not getting in the way of them. Wen Ning is making space. Wen Ning said he is a gift. Wen Ning told him not to think, but Xichen expects this would be an exception.

“These tears feel good, don’t they?” Wen Ning asks as he leans over and kisses Xichen on the temple.

They do. Xichen doesn’t understand it, but they do. Maybe it’s because he feels at home inside his body for the first time in half a year. Perhaps it’s because he feels contained in the rope instead of falling into a million different pieces.

Maybe it’s because he’s realized it’s okay to feel good again, even if he hates it or fights it.

“Yes, sir,” he whispers because he doesn’t know how to say any of that to Wen Ning.

“That’s a good boy. Should I make you cry more?” Wen Ning lifts Xichen’s chin up, and Xichen nods as tears still spill over his slap-reddened cheeks.

Xichen falls asleep sometime before lunch, with his cheek pressed against Wen Ning’s chest and his upper body crisscrossed with the imprint of the rope. He’s hand-fed lunch just as he was breakfast, content on his knees at Wen Ning’s feet. Afterward, Wen Ning massages lotion into every inch of marked skin as Xichen melts into the bed.

The rest of their Saturday is spent in the luxurious indulgence of dumb TV and too-expensive room service. Xichen eventually stretches out on his own bed, skin too hypersensitive after all the pain and the touch to stay cuddled close to Wen Ning. He feels gloriously at home in his own skin.

“Can we do this again?” Xichen asks during a commercial break. Wen Ning said they could, but Xichen needs to hear it when he’s not blissed out on pain and endorphins.

“Yeah, of course. How could I turn down such a sweet masochist such as yourself? I can’t play that hard with your brother or Xian-ge.”

Xichen makes a soft sound. He had not considered that he’d be adding something to the mix. “I expect I’ll keep crying during scenes for a while.”

“You need it. I’m happy to give it to you.” Wen Ning shrugs like it isn’t a big deal. Maybe it isn’t to him, but it is to Xichen. He rolls out of bed and sits on the edge of Wen Ning’s bed, reaching out to touch the back of Wen Ning’s hand.

“Thank you, Wen Ning,” Xichen says, head bowed.

Wen Ning turns his hand over and twines his fingers with Xichen's. "You're very welcome, sweet boy."

Six months and one week after Jin Gaungyao and Nie Mingjue died, Xichen finds himself back in his brother’s house. Wangji and Wen Ning sit side-by-side. Wei Wuxian draped half over their laps on the new, rather large sectional sofa that appeared while Xichen and Wen Ning were at the hotel.

“Budge over, Xian-ge” Wen Ning says as he pushes at Wei Wuxian’s head. “Make room for Xichen-ge.”

“If you give me a moment, I’ll lay over all three of you so no one needs to feel left out,” Wei Wuxian sighs, even as he wiggles back so his head barely touches Wen Ning’s leg.

“I’m fine,” Xichen protests, but he doesn’t fight it when Wen Ning gently tugs him down so Xichen’s head is in his lap.

“Bonk,” Wei Wuxian laughs as the crown of his head touches Xichen’s.

“Behave,” Wangji says mildly as he tugs Wei Wuxian’s hair, making him sigh dramatically.

Wangji’s fingers reach Xichen’s head, stroking his hair before tangling his fingers with Wen Ning’s.

Grief still sits like a lead ball inside Xichen’s chest. He expects it will never fully go away. Xichen knows there will be days when it’s a knife instead of a weight. He expects there will be anger and grey days again. They're not hard to imagine, but they feel far away. Xichen is inhabiting his body too firmly to slip away just now. Anchored by the gift Wen Ning gave him over the weekend.

Wen Ning, or maybe Wangji, toys with his hair as Wei Wuxian talks through the movie they’re trying to watch. They’re all so tender, so attentive. Xichen is tired and hurting, but it’s not bone-deep exhaustion. It’s the kind of tired after a long workout or a good scene. The pain eases in time. 

This fic has been converted for free using AOYeet!