certain things are crossed out

by queen_gee

Summary:

Shen Wei wakes up in a world he has always wanted, where Zhao Yunlan loves him and the world is at peace. This world is not real.

Notes:

in Richard Siken’s poem of almost the same name, Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out, there are many lines that apply. most notably, especially in regards to weilan, is this one:

“You want a better story. Who wouldn’t?”

in some ways, this is not that story. in others, it is.

thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy.

(this fic technically has an open ending, but I like to believe it is a happy one. this story's place in the timeline is not entirely clear but I'd place it after the blind arc and before the kunlun arc, in the places between love and where it begins to fray)

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Shen Wei wakes, and it is almost right.

 

At first, he notices nothing. He is in a soft bed and there is a glare of sunlight through a window, falling into his eyes like a brutal good morning. He lifts his hand and feels the weight of his bones—he feels as if he has been through the wringer, like if he tugs up the sleeves of his shirt he will find bruises. His head is an unfathomable, shapeless fog for a sleepy moment—until he realizes the smell is wrong, the sheets are wrong, and he bolts up in a sudden surge of panic, hand reaching into shadow for a glaive that finds a shape in his hand.

 

“Whoa, whoa,” he hears, and then there is a warm hand on his, pushing it back down to the bed. He knows that voice. He knows that voice better than any voice in the world. “At ease, Xiao Wei. You trying to kill me or what?”

 

On instinct, Shen Wei dismisses the blade. He blinks against the brightness of the room, head spinning as he tries to absorb the details—this is not his apartment, this is not his room, this is Zhao Yunlan’s apartment and Zhao Yunlan’s bed— until his eyes find the man himself, kneeling next to his bed and grinning as his Shen Wei has ever reason to be there. His hair is messy as if he has been sleeping, or perhaps running his hands through it. He’s stripped down most of his layers but he still wears his jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

 

He looks at ease, in his own home. Shen Wei stares at him wordlessly, discombobulated, a quiet sense of alarm bells ringing in the back of his mind.

 

When Shen Wei doesn’t speak, Zhao Yunlan frowns. He reaches out and touches his hand to Shen Wei’s forehead. Shen Wei freezes under the calluses of warm fingers, touching him so gently as if he may shatter.

 

“Does your head still hurt?” Zhao Yunlan demands, frowning. His empty hand reaches for his pocket, likely for his phone, even while his other hand skims down Shen Wei’s cheek to his neck, leaving a line of fire in its wake. “You took a really good hit last night, knocked you all the way out. Figures you’d lie about not having a headache, Xiao Wei, you’re lucky you’re injured or I would kick your ass—”

 

Shen Wei stares, locking down for impact, waiting for the moment where the scene changes into something that makes sense. But it doesn’t, not even when Zhao Yunlan brushes the back of his fingers against the pulse point in Shen Wei’s neck, or when Zhao Yunlan looks up from his phone and smiles at him so sweetly that Shen Wei holds his breath. Zhao Yunlan’s beautiful smile falters when he sees whatever expression is on Shen Wei’s face, replaced by a focused frown that creates a stern line on his brow.

 

“What is up with you today?” Zhao Yunlan asks, and it should be sharper than it is but it is soft, it is kind, it is so sympathetic that Shen Wei feels as if he is being ripped open from the edges of it.

 

Shen Wei realizes he is waiting for an answer. Shen Wei has more questions than answers, so he finally manages to ask, “Why am I here?”

 

Why am I in your bed, Shen Wei cannot ask, half-hysterical and feeling like he may burst out of his skin. Why are you looking at me like I belong here, like it doesn’t bother you—

 

This question doesn’t surprise Zhao Yunlan, who grins and says, “What, did you think I was going to just drop you off at your cold and quiet apartment and pace away across the hall? Or a hospital bed? We can still go to the hospital if you want. Not like they’d be able to do much, probably, but we can always ask, come on.”

 

Zhao Yunlan pushes onto his feet, stretching his legs and moving in the exaggerated way he does when he is trying to make a joke, when he is trying to show the absolute foolishness of whatever has been said or done. Shen Wei blinks at him, and then finally thinks to look down at himself. His entire brain whites out when he realizes these are not his clothes, that the shirt is his but he has never bought or worn a pair of sweatpants in his life.

 

He is still staring at his clothes and feeling a steadily building sense of something—laughter, perhaps, or even simply incredulity, the dawning wonder of how this must be a very vivid dream—when the bed dips. He looks up and Zhao Yunlan is perched on the edge of the bed, still smiling at him brightly, like he is something wonderful.

 

“Hey,” he says, tugging on Shen Wei’s shirtsleeve, “don’t give me that look, you know I’m just kidding. That hit to the head must’ve left you a bit too fuzzy, huh? I didn’t know Dixingren could get concussions.”

 

“A concussion,” Shen Wei echoes. It’s not right, it doesn’t quite match what is happening inside of his head. There is a slight ache but it is from the tension in his jaw, not from a supposed hit to the head. Shen Wei feels displaced but he does not feel like he has to recover from an injury. He feels more like he has leapt through time and space, landing somewhere he is not supposed to be able to see, a place that is so much of too many things. Shen Wei is too foggy already, his heart hammering, to think of what particular things those are.

 

Zhao Yunlan is still smiling, still unphased, when he reaches for Shen Wei and runs his hands through his hair. Shen Wei freezes like a startled animal and Zhao Yunlan teases softly, “Ah, Xiao Wei, baby, I thought we were past that.”

 

And then he leans forward and presses his lips to Shen Wei’s forehead.

 

A dream, he thinks. It must be a dream but it feels so real, Zhao Yunlan’s breath against his forehead and the way he can still feel his lips lingering like a brand. Zhao Yunlan smells like detergent and sleep and just a lingering scent of his lollipops. Shen Wei, who has never dared to dream of this before, who has never dared to get this close, shivers.

 

It’s so vivid. So real. He squeezes his eyes shut and feels the physical pain in his chest as he thinks of how it will hurt to wake up. He braces himself there and waits to wake up, his heart beating so hard against his ribs he is afraid the skin beyond will bruise.

 

He waits, and he does not wake up. He opens his eyes and Zhao Yunlan is still looking at him teasingly, as if they are playing a game. As if it is a norm, to have Shen Wei playing coy and odd in his bed. As if this is a welcome space for Shen Wei to make after all that he has done, after all that has happened.

 

“If your head is still bothering you, we can call out today,” he offers, grinning. “You’re looking at me with your ‘I’m hurt but I refuse to show it’ face, so I’ll call the school, alright? Can’t have you teaching impressionable young minds when your own mind isn’t in tip top shape. They pay good money for access to that brain.”

 

Zhao Yunlan moves to stand up. Shen Wei, in an act of what must be momentary lunacy, grabs his wrist before he can go. Zhao Yunlan looks back at him, startled, and Shen Wei feels his mouth opening to ask… something.

 

He wants to ask why he is acting this way. He wants to ask Zhao Yunlan why he is looking at Shen Wei as if he means something to him. He wants to ask if this is something cruel that humans do, like a joke or a prank. Shen Wei wants to ask Zhao Yunlan why he is acting as if nothing has happened as if they were not just arguing days ago, as if it has not been like standing on rocky ice ever since.

 

He wants to ask why he cannot remember hitting his head. He wants to ask why he feels as though he is forgetting something incredibly, infinitely important.

 

Shen Wei is not a fool but he has not survived in this world as long as he has by asking stupid, foolish questions. So he opens his mouth and, instead of demanding answers, instead of ruining the dream, he says, “Just cancel the classes. I’ll go to Special Investigations with you today.”

 

He waits for the narrowed eyes. He waits for the exhaustion that Zhao Yunlan wears now when they speak of his job. He waits for the weight of the world to come back and land on their shoulders as if it had never been gone, as if it had simply not known to look for them in this place that they have carved out just for them.

 

But Zhao Yunlan doesn’t blink before grinning again, tapping a finger against Shen Wei’s nose before turning away again. This time, Shen Wei lets him, watching the way Zhao Yunlan’s back moves under his shirt as he walks a few steps away, pressing at buttons on his phone. He is not wearing shoes and for some reason, this hits Shen Wei so hard he practically gasps for breath. It feels too intimate, seeing Zhao Yunlan like this. He turns away, reaching up and pressing hard against the aching spot in his chest.

 

There is something off. There is something wrong. There are too many questions.

 

Shen Wei knows he should ask. Knows, and—doesn’t.

 

Well, he thinks, watching Zhao Yunlan pace his living room, using the quiet voice he only uses when he is speaking to someone he must show respect to. Halfway through his next lap around the room, he catches Shen Wei looking and grins again, bright like sunlight, happy in a way Shen Wei has never made him. Shen Wei smiles back and it only makes Zhao Yunlan smile wider, turning away as he speaks. Shen Wei can still see the wrinkles around his eyes, his mouth.

 

Well. It would be foolish now, to ask, when he has already hidden it away so long. Perhaps he will be able to parse the truth as he goes, allowing himself the opportunity to take a look at this world and its strange little pieces. He can feel his powers unaffected under his skin—the only thing he does not understand is here. Now.

 

If it is a dream, he reasons, watching Zhao Yunlan move, then how would it hurt to stay? If it is an imposter, he will know soon. If it is a shift in time, a sidestep into a place that has not yet happened, despite how outlandish Shen Wei believes that to be, he can find that out soon enough, too. 

 

It is just too strange. Right, but not right. As if all of the furniture in the room is just an inch to the left. As if Shen Wei has woken up and gotten something he has wanted more than anything else in the world, and there was not even a price.

 

There is always a price. There is always a loophole, a trick, a tell. Shen Wei is observant; he is certain that he will be able to see it when it happens, and he will not fail to act.

 

Still, he lingers in a few more stolen moments. Lets himself absorb the heat of the sheets, lets himself remember what it feels like. He presses his nose to the blanket and breathes it in, lets it linger on his senses. Commits it to memory where no one can take it.

 

And when Zhao Yunlan looks back at him, eyes already crinkling at the corners, he takes the opportunity to steal just one more smile.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

There are many more smiles. Shen Wei does not let his head spin with it except that it does, impossibly improbable, too much all at once. Zhao Yunlan teases him the entire time they are getting dressed, especially when he opens the closet door and Shen Wei sees some of his own clothes inside, familiar and organized just the way he likes it. Shen Wei changes into clothes he has worn a thousand times and cannot help but to feel the disjointed disconnect down to his bones, even as he finds his cufflinks in the pocket right where they are supposed to be. He even checks his phone, finding it all in order.

 

Except for the photos, because there are now photos on his phone, easily a hundred of them. They’re of many things, some of them Special Investigations but most of them Zhao Yunlan. He sees one photo of them both, Zhao Yunlan’s arm around his shoulder as he smiles to the camera, Shen Wei pressing a kiss onto his cheek, and he slams the phone onto the table so hard he nearly breaks it. 

 

Zhao Yunlan only brings up his behavior one more time as they drive toward Special Investigations, the car the same and the driving the same and the streets the same. It was a companionable ride, aided only by Zhao Yunlan’s strange taste in music, but Zhao Yunlan turns the radio down to ask one more time, tone brimming in concern, “Are you sure you’re alright? You’re acting strange.”

 

“Just a headache,” Shen Wei is quick to reassure him. He has been trying his hardest to act as he usually does, hoping not to attract unwanted attention, and he hadn’t thought he’d deviated except for those few prior early tells. “I’m sorry,” he adds because he feels as though he has to, and it surprises him by being correct. Zhao Yunlan immediately snorts, rolling his eyes.

 

“You’ve gotta stop apologizing to me, Xiao Wei,” Zhao Yunlan tells him, reaching back for the radio, turning it back up as he adds, “I thought we figured that out after the war.”

 

The radio goes back to blaring. Zhao Yunlan is distracted enough by the road that he doesn’t seem to notice the way Shen Wei flinches, the way he cannot hide his surprise. He turns to the window and stares out at the streets, feeling his stomach roiling. The war. The war.

 

The war is over, but that isn’t right. The war had yet to even begin, slowly building up with a slow, deadly certainty that promised a bloody, brutal something to come. But it had not passed, and it had not even begun to take shape as a war. Shen Wei knows he would not have forgotten a war whose blood was on his hands, however many lives and losses ascribed to his name and the way he could not keep his brother locked away.

 

Except. For the first time, Shen Wei feels a prickle of doubt. He wonders if it is possible that he is the one that is wrong. That this is the future, that he has blinked and lost however many memories between here and there.

 

This is absurd. It is an easy solution and he knows better than to believe it, but in the chaos there is a piece of him that wants to cling to it. It feels like the first steady rock, his entire body out of sea, thrown around in a great storm. It feels like it would be easy to grab onto that rock and keep himself afloat. He feels like, if he was another man, he might have been able to keep hanging on until it made sense.

 

But Shen Wei is not that man and has never been that man. He glances at Zhao Yunlan, humming obnoxiously to the sound of his music, and thinks he is none the wiser. He looks back out at his window and he bites his lip when he wants to ask what parts of the world burned. He wants to ask what they had to rebuild in the aftermath. 

 

He does not, cannot. He thinks that there may be an opportunity later, a natural talking point between himself and perhaps one of the agents of Special Investigations. He can ask where Zhao Yunlan will not overhear. A plan begins to form in his mind.

 

It is not real, he reminds himself, even if the world feels strong under his fingers. Even if his powers keep poking at it and affirming that it is, in fact, real. It feels just as real as anything Shen Wei has ever lived and that is how he knows it cannot be. It cannot, because his clothes are in Zhao Yunlan’s closet, and he was in his bed like he belongs there. Shen Wei can be fooled with his eyes, but if there has ever been a marker in the ground for him to follow, a marker to guide him home, it has always been Zhao Yunlan.

 

And Zhao Yunlan, for all that he looks at Shen Wei, does not look at him like that. Zhao Yunlan does not love Shen Wei like that, like how Shen Wei loves him.

 

It will be an easy plan. A simple fix. Shen Wei affirms himself of it as the streets pass, counting the street signs and listening to the simple, easy way Zhao Yunlan sings to the open windows. How he exists as if Shen Wei is not there, drinking it in.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Special Investigations is similar, but there are some important changes.

 

There are more people now, unfamiliar faces bustling around with the harriedness of interns and new recruits, constantly chattering amongst themselves and moving with a purpose that keeps their chins raised. Noticeably, too, are the faces he knows, and the one missing. His gaze lingers on Zhu Hong’s desk, unoccupied and dusted over as if it hasn’t been for a while, and it’s Guo Changcheng who helpfully supplies Zhu Hong’s new job leading and mediating the tribes.

 

Remember? he asked pointedly after he finished his explanation, eyes wide. Zhao Yunlan mumbled something about nosy coworkers who care too much about injured professors. Shen Wei had simply nodded and smiled, letting the taste of that explanation linger on his tongue.

 

He expects it to taste wrong. Instead, it fits like a correct answer found with an incorrect equation. Of course that is where Zhu Hong is, but why would that be where Zhu Hong is?

 

Shen Wei rubs his fingers against his temples. The office is louder than it has ever been, too full. Zhao Yunlan is quickly intercepted and dragged off toward—somewhere. Shen Wei knows he cannot have gone far so he doesn’t bother to look for him. It is peacetime and the world has moved on. The world is better now.

 

The new recruits stare at him with wonder and fear. The world must know who he is now, too. Shen Wei stares back, curious, and most are quick to avert their eyes. The third time it happens, a young woman muffling a squeak before fleeing, Lin Jing laughs from his desk.

 

“You’re going to scare them away, Professor Shen,” he teases, raising his eyebrows. “What’s with all the staring? They’ve all passed extensive background checks.”

 

“Nothing,” he dismisses, and then hesitates. Lin Jing is reckless with his knowledge, noticing much but never asking many questions that matter. Shen Wei figures he is a good choice to ask the question he cannot bear to vocalize; he only gets as far as, “Ye Zun—” before he trails off, name lodged in his throat.

 

Lin Jing’s face softens in understanding and he nods exaggeratedly as if he can read Shen Wei’s mind. “Right, right, I get it. Ye Zun did—a lot. He had a lot of spies.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“He’s locked up nice and tight,” Lin Jing reassures him. He lifts a hand to slap him on the shoulder and then seems to realize halfway through the motion who he is speaking to, pulling it back into an awkward pat as he winces. “All these people have been vetted. Not a spy in the bunch. Trust me.”

 

Lin Jing says it like it’s an inside joke. Shen Wei smiles like he understands it, all while his mind struggles to recalibrate.

 

Ye Zun is imprisoned. Not only have they won the war, but they have managed to do so without ending his brother’s life. Ye Zun has done terrible things but what Shen Wei feels is a staggering relief. He knows there is a war—has been a war, perhaps—and that Ye Zun will have stood on the opposite side of the fighting lines. Still, it is a breath of a long-held breath to know his brother is not dead. That he did not have to kill him.

 

Shen Wei has failed Ye Zun enough. He does not know how he would have recovered from failing him in the most permanent, irreversible way.

 

It has answered many questions but it has told Shen Wei next to nothing. He looks around at the room and considers approaching some of the new faces, or perhaps even the old ones. Chu Shuzhi sits at his desk, scowling at a newcomer who stutters through their report in fear. Da Qing is yawning boredly curled up on the couch, nodding vaguely along with something that another recruit is telling him. Wang Zheng is humming a song to herself as she scrolls through files on her computer aimlessly, cheek pillowed on her fist.

 

At the last moment, he hesitates. He rubs the skin over his heart and instead turns toward the hall to Zhao Yunlan’s office.

 

He hears him before he sees him, and the sound of his voice relaxes a familiar tension in his chest. He follows the cadence of his voice until he is standing in the doorway of Zhao Yunlan’s office, watching him argue into the receiver about protocol. He looks up and sees Shen Wei in the doorway and offers him an addicting grin, quickly making an excuse into the phone and hanging up before the other person could possibly have replied.

 

He drifts to his feet and Shen Wei says, “That sounded important.”

 

Zhao Yunlan scoffs. “It wasn’t, trust me,” he assures with a familiar practiced carelessness but there’s a hint of lingering anger in his eyes. Shen Wei recognizes it like second nature and feels a familiar stirring of concern in his chest. He tilts his head curiously but Zhao Yunlan shakes his head before he can even ask, gesturing as if to swat the line of questioning away.

 

They have always been able to communicate with little words, which has at times served them well. Shen Wei is most frustrated with the conversations like these where the words are deserved, where they should be said and explained, but they wither into nothingness before they can ever hit the open air. A phantom of what he may never learn to understand.

 

It is so familiar that Shen Wei doesn’t even notice he is falling into these normal patterns until a tiny voice in the back of his mind whispers that this might not be real. Shen Wei feels the realization land like a lightning strike. He does not know how he got so careless, how he allowed himself to feel so at home in this place where his skin does not feel like it fits.

 

Shen Wei swallows it down, forces it back into his throat, and says without preamble, “I want to see Ye Zun.”

 

“No,” Zhao Yunlan replies without missing a beat, eyebrows raising incredulously. “What? Xiao Wei. Absolutely not.”

 

“Why not?”

 

Zhao Yunlan stares at him like he has grown an extra head, like he has lost his mind, like any of this world is a world that makes sense. Zhao Yunlan crosses the space between them and holds Shen Wei’s shoulders in his warm hands. He is so close that Shen Wei can see all of the colors in his eyes.

 

“What is going on with you today?” he asks quietly, serious. His eyebrows are drawn together in concern. His thumbs rub against Shen Wei’s shoulders as if to reassure himself that Shen Wei is there, that he is alright. “Xiao Wei, after everything he’s done, after everything he put us through—”

 

“He’s my brother.”

 

“He is,” Zhao Yunlan says but he’s holding Shen Wei hard enough that he feels him—flinch. As if Shen Wei has said something that is cruel.

 

Shen Wei wants to keep arguing, but he hesitates. There is something he is missing. Zhao Yunlan won’t quite meet his eyes, his mouth drawn tight, and Shen Wei does not know what this empty part can be. He does not know how to solve a puzzle without a hint of where to begin.

 

He has done something cruel. Zhao Yunlan doesn’t seem interested in rehashing it but Ye Zun is the trigger, matching with whatever must have happened at the end of the war. Shen Wei has a vivid imagination; he can only imagine what would cause that expression on Zhao Yunlan’s face, what could leave invisible scars. 

 

Shen Wei feels adrift again, scrambling to correct the course. He shifts but Zhao Yunlan is already slipping away, not far but decidedly out of reach. He smiles but there is something wrong with his eyes. There is a wall, concrete and immovable, a separation to something that can only be trauma—and Shen Wei wonders if the scars are physical, too, and if he might see them if Zhao Yunlan peels off his shirt.

 

He shocks himself out of that daydream, reeling. He nearly staggers back a step. He doesn’t know where that came from, doesn’t know why it was so natural to—

 

“Xiao Wei,” Zhao Yunlan says, snapping his attention back to him. He is holding his hands as if in surrender. His tone says he is seeking a compromise. Shen Wei has never seen Zhao Yunlan wave a white flag but he thinks it would look like this, with hurt in his eyes and his hands half reaching toward Shen Wei as if in a silent plea. “Can we—I know he’s your—but after what happened, after what he did to you—”

 

Zhao Yunlan grasps for words. Shen Wei stares, speechless at Zhao Yunlan’s speechlessness.

 

It is raw and real. It stings like a real hit. Shen Wei nearly looks under his own collar for a scar he might be missing, a phantom ache that can explain why he can taste blood in his mouth, why he can hear the sound of Zhao Yunlan screaming his name in terror.

 

And just like that, it’s gone. Zhao Yunlan shakes his head and his hands fall to his side. His eyes close. He is a fortress and he is infallible, locking it all away inside of himself. Shen Wei bites back against an instinctual protest. He reaches for Zhao Yunlan before he even realizes he is moving.

 

His fingers touch Zhao Yunlan’s face. Zhao Yunlan opens his eyes and smiles lazily, but his eyes don’t move. He looks like he has aged fifty years in one second. He looks like he is seeing something in front of him that is not there, something that he has not been able to outrun for a very long time.

 

Shen Wei tries to remind himself this is not real. He feels Zhao Yunlan’s pulse under his fingertips and watches the way his face moves in ways he has never seen before and he thinks again, quietly, just for himself, that he might be the one who has it all wrong.

 

“I’m sorry,” he whispers even though he doesn’t know what he is apologizing for, simply knowing that he has done something to make the light leave Zhao Yunlan’s eyes. He leans forward and dares to press his face into Zhao Yunlan’s hair. Shen Wei dares to let his lips linger.

 

Zhao Yunlan is tense under him—and then relaxes by degrees. He leans into Shen Wei’s hold. He takes a few gulping breaths as if he hasn’t been breathing, or as if he has forgotten how to. Zhao Yunlan reaches out and curls a hand into the front of Shen Wei’s shirt, bunching it up and wrinkling it.

 

“Not now,” Zhao Yunlan whispers like a compromise. Like a decision that has come with a cost. “Just—not now.”

 

Shen Wei nods like he understands. He thinks, if he focuses enough, he can feel the residual ache of something sharp and deadly piercing his chest. He thinks, if he really dares to try, he can remember how it feels to fall to his knees to the soundtrack of Zhao Yunlan brokenly screaming his name. He thinks, if he reaches far enough into the shadows, he can hear Zhao Yunlan begging someone to kill him, too.

 

He buries it deep, shakes it away. He has always had an imagination. He is simply filling in blanks that need to be filled in. Things that are remembered are not always memories, after all.

 

Zhao Yunlan tucks himself tighter into Shen Wei’s embrace. He sighs heavily into Shen Wei’s chest, arms locked around his waist. Shen Wei runs his fingers through Zhao Yunlan’s hair and closes his eyes, feeling another flicker of—doubt. 

 

“We’ll talk about it later,” Shen Wei promises but even now, he knows it will never happen. Zhao Yunlan plants a kiss over Shen Wei’s heart. Shen Wei feels it take root.

 

“Okay,” Zhao Yunlan mumbles. He slots himself even closer, relaxes deeper into Shen Wei’s arms. Shen Wei grips him close, desperately. A half-insane part of him wishes he could open up his skin and tuck Zhao Yunlan inside, keeping him safe in the cavity that holds his heart.

 

Shen Wei rests his chin on top of Zhao Yunlan’s head and stares blankly at the wall ahead of them. He doesn’t know how long they stand like that, Special Investigations moving restlessly all around them and the two of them in their own corner of the universe, tucked away where no one could bother them. He doesn’t know how long they stay there, undisturbed and untouched, stealing this moment just for themselves.

 

He only knows that it is long enough for doubt to crawl inside of his mind and take hold. Long enough that when Zhao Yunlan pulls away with a kiss and a grin like nothing at all happened, Shen Wei touches the curve of his mouth and thinks that maybe it really isn’t the world that is wrong. Long enough that a part of him is finally willing to believe that he is the thing wrong in the world and not the other way around.

 

He doesn’t mention it. He sets it to the side to be dealt with later. He has time, he reconciles. Shen Wei has always had nothing but time.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

When they return to their building, Shen Wei makes an excuse about needing something from his apartment. Zhao Yunlan doesn’t so much as blink, grinning and offering to get takeout. Shen Wei agrees and watches the easy way Zhao Yunlan walks back the way they came, hands tucked into his pockets and shoulders slack. There is no suspicion on his face, in his body language. To Zhao Yunlan, this is any regular day. 

 

Shen Wei ransacks his desk. There are papers he doesn’t recognize but there is nothing with sensitive information. The dates are deep into the future, nearly a year. Shen Wei flicks through graded papers for students with names he doesn’t recognize and he feels the first sign of panic fluttering behind his ribs.

 

It isn’t real except that it is. Shen Wei tears through his apartment but he does not find a singular thing missing, not a single thing out of place. There are clothes at Zhao Yunlan’s and everything is on his desk that should be there. His briefcase is organized the way he always keeps it. There is nothing in the fridge but there is a fruit bowl on the counter.

 

It feels real except it cannot be. It feels real but there is a discordant note that Shen Wei cannot shake. The world is too perfect. Shen Wei does not know a world this kind.

 

It must be a trick but he cannot find the tell. It must be a joke but he cannot find the punchline.

 

He stares at the mess he has made, papers scattered every which way. There are pictures on his phone. There is nothing out of place. Shen Wei’s head spins but he cannot find the missing piece. He cannot figure out how he is so sure it exists at all.

 

Eventually, he packs his papers back up. He puts everything back where it belongs. Shen Wei leaves everything the way he left it, the way he has always left it. Zhao Yunlan should be home soon and this is no longer his home. Shen Wei stands in the doorway and turns the lights off, sending the empty apartment back into shadow.

 

He steals an extra moment there. Two.

 

He closes and locks the door behind him, and he walks to the apartment across the hall. 

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Zhao Yunlan insists on eating dinner at the sofa like an animal. Shen Wei’s head is too full to argue, simply following him there. He balances his plate on his knees and tries to take bites every minute. Zhao Yunlan turns on the television but doesn’t seem to be watching it, humming to himself as he eats. At one point, he hooks an ankle around Shen Wei’s and shoots him a grin when he glances over. 

 

Shen Wei loves him very much, even this version of Zhao Yunlan he barely knows. Especially this one. Shen Wei cannot help but to love this version of Zhao Yunlan who loves him like he is a great treasure. He cannot help but to love what he will never have.

 

He fears some of it shows on his face. He takes a second too long to smile back. He catches Zhao Yunlan looking at him with an unreadable expression, eyebrows pinched. Shen Wei desperately wants to blend into whatever this is but he does not know how to be someone that Zhao Yunlan loves.

 

Zhao Yunlan has always been sensitive to the room around him—he is a good investigator for many reasons but that is one of them. He notices the change in Shen Wei quickly. It’s only a manner of minutes before Zhao Yunlan is setting his half-finished plate onto the table and sliding down onto the ground, resting his chin on Shen Wei’s knee and looking up at him with a searching gaze. Shen Wei automatically lifts away his own plate, staring down with him in bemusement.

 

“Xiao Wei,” Zhao Yunlan murmurs, gazing up at him with eyebrows inching upwards. “What’s with the face?”

 

“It’s the only face I have,” Shen Wei responds imperiously, and Zhao Yunlan snorts. He shifts closer, pressing his body more firmly against Shen Wei’s leg. It’s less sexual than it is just intensely intimate. Shen Wei almost would’ve preferred nakedness.  

 

“It is,” he agrees, “and it’s looking at me like I set a houseful of puppies and babies on fire.”

 

“Zhao Yunlan.”

 

“Okay,” the man amends, his mouth ticking in an attempt not to smile, “maybe not that bad. Come on, Xiao Wei. I can’t fix what I don’t know is broken.”

 

Shen Wei looks away. He doesn’t know how to explain to Zhao Yunlan that he might be the one that is broken, or transported, or anything in between. He does not know how to put into words that he does not fit into this world the way he has always wished he could. Shen Wei has wished for this for so long, and now it is glaringly obvious that he does not know what to do with it now that he has it.

 

He thinks there is something pathetic in that. Something devastating. He brushes those pieces of his insecurity to the side and hides it away.

 

He doesn’t understand this world. Perhaps that is the crux of it—he cannot begin to even consider the possibility of its reality because it is beyond what has ever been. Shen Wei has an imagination but he is also logical enough to know that dreaming for impossible things is a waste of time. He has always had bigger things to do than to break his own heart.

 

This world is not real. It cannot be. So there is no harm in letting himself be a little too vulnerable. There is no harm in cutting himself on the jagged edges of his own everything.

 

“Why do you love me?” Shen Wei asks. His voice comes out patient, curious, as if he is not bleeding inside of himself. As if he is not desperate to understand why this Zhao Yunlan looks at him like he is the center of the universe and his does not love him in the same way. 

 

He asks it like it is a simple question that can be answered in a quantifiable, simple way. He asks it like it is something that he can answer in return without ripping his own heart out and letting it bleed in his fingers. Offering it to this man who has always possessed it, even in the thousands of years in between.

 

Zhao Yunlan rocks back on his heels as if the question is a physical blow. His eyes flash around Shen Wei’s face as if searching for humor. Shen Wei wishes he could take back the words but it is too late now so he simply stares back, gearing himself up for an answer that may be more than he has ever needed. Waiting to see if the answer is, instead, a waking nightmare of guilt or sympathy or all of the other kindnesses Zhao Yunlan is.

 

Shen Wei waits for Zhao Yunlan to tell him he loves him because it is easy. He waits for Zhao Yunlan to say that he loves Shen Wei only for the pieces of himself he can be and not for what he is. He waits to hear that Zhao Yunlan only loves him out of pity or gratitude or grief.

 

Instead, Zhao Yunlan’s hands come down on Shen Wei’s knees and squeeze. His expression shutters down like boarding up windows in a storm. Zhao Yunlan pushes himself up until he can sit on the small table, leaning forward and staring at Shen Wei with an intensity of emotion that Shen Wei, horribly, cannot read.

 

Zhao Yunlan simmers in it for a moment, unreadable, unfathomable. And then he says, “Xiao Wei,” and Shen Wei realizes—he is angry. More than that, Zhao Yunlan is hurt.

 

Shen Wei scrambles to understand why, but he doesn’t need to. Zhao Yunlan squeezes his knees again, gripping him hard enough that he may have bruised him if he was another person. Something like grief and determination war on Zhao Yunlan’s fiery face. He looks as if he is going into battle. He looks like a man who can win war after war.

 

“Xiao Wei,” Zhao Yunlan says again, focused and intense. His gaze smolders. Shen Wei loves him. “I know it’s been a long, strange day and I know I shouldn’t have gotten—when you brought up your brother—” He pauses, and then shakes his head. “Never mind. Starting over. Xiao Wei—”

 

All at once, Shen Wei realizes he cannot hear the end of this. He puts his hand over Zhao Yunlan’s mouth, who startles with surprise. And then, as Shen Wei watches him, his eyes curve with a smile. Like Zhao Yunlan is pleased Shen Wei can keep surprising him.

 

And then, without hesitation, Zhao Yunlan licks his palm.

 

Shen Wei whips his hand back. Zhao Yunlan laughs loud and open, his eyes creasing deep in the corners and his head thrown back. Before Shen Wei can pull away, discombobulated, Zhao Yunlan leans forward and grabs his knees again, but this time he’s smiling.

 

“Xiao Wei,” he murmurs, and this time it’s so sweet it makes Shen Wei’s teeth ache. “Ah, Professor Shen, you can’t just ask me for just a few reasons why I love you like I haven’t loved you since the beginning.”

 

“Don’t,” Shen Wei says like a reflex, and then flinches when Zhao Yunlan’s eyebrows rise. Zhao Yunlan frowns and waits until Shen Wei looks back at him; then, he reaches forward and holds Shen Wei’s hands in between his palms, patient and sweet and looking at him in a way Shen Wei has never deserved.

 

“I have,” Zhao Yunlan whispers like a fact, stubborn and kind. His eyes are beautiful in the dimming light. His hands are soft on Shen Wei’s face. Shen Wei loves him. “I’ve loved you for a very long time, Xiao Wei. I loved you when I met you and I love you more every day. And if you don’t believe me, then I guess I’m going to have to try harder to prove it.”

 

It isn’t an answer. Shen Wei does not make a move to point it out, either, even if a part of him wants to. He tries to smile, tries to back away even if just by inches, wondering when he had become a fool enough to fall for simple, beautiful fantasies.

 

But Zhao Yunlan doesn’t let him shrink away. Zhao Yunlan slips forward until their knees touch. He keeps his soft, sweeping fingers on Shen Wei’s face even when he has backed away far enough that Zhao Yunlan must lean uncomfortably to follow. He’s still smiling at Shen Wei like he loves him.

 

“You’re brave,” Zhao Yunlan says, and shushes Shen Wei when he tries to protest, to redirect, to flee. “You put on a big heartless tough guy act but you’re thoughtful. You wanted good things for the people of Dixing even when Dixing didn’t give a damn about you. You’re selfless and kind. You’re merciless sometimes but it’s because you care so much. You definitely care more than you want people to think you do. You always give your students extra points when they’re struggling, and I know for a fact that you still accept late work at full credit even though you have a whole paragraph in your syllabus about how you don’t.”

 

Zhao Yunlan has not said anything more than mere observation but Shen Wei feels flayed open. He feels like Zhao Yunlan has managed to find a microscope to see under Shen Wei’s skin. Shen Wei sits and watches, startled, as Zhao Yunlan grins at him lazily like he could go on and on for days and never run out of things to say.

 

“But my favorite thing,” Zhao Yunlan murmurs, his thumb a whisper of movement on Shen Wei’s cheekbone, “is the way you look at me.”

 

Shen Wei doesn’t know how he looks at him. He looks at him anyway and Zhao Yunlan grins, wide and childlike.

 

“Yeah,” he says, like a secret. “Like that.”

 

He leans forward. Shen Wei closes his eyes and it makes Zhao Yunlan’s lips on his forehead feel like fireworks.

 

It doesn’t feel like it should be enough but it’s also more than anything Shen Wei has ever dreamed. He knows he should keep his guard up but Zhao Yunlan is pressing his lips to Shen Wei’s throat, slipping his hands into his hair, and he can pretend for a little while longer. Zhao Yunlan slithers onto Shen Wei’s lap and Shen Wei holds him tight enough to make Zhao Yunlan’s ribs ache and it’s fine. It’s fine.

 

This is a world in which Zhao Yunlan loves him, even if it’s not all the way. Shen Wei is sure there is an end date, that Zhao Yunlan will look up one day and see Shen Wei sitting across from him and wonder what in the world he was thinking. Shen Wei thinks, desperately, that it might be worth it to stay until that day. That he will at least love and be loved, if only for a little while.

 

It’s too much and everything. It is so little and more and all at once. Shen Wei buries his head in Zhao Yunlan’s shoulder and breathes him in, Zhao Yunlan’s weight against his body, and wants it to be real so desperately that it bites like tears at the back of his throat. Shen Wei is not sure and he wants, achingly, horribly.

 

He clings tighter instead. He lets Zhao Yunlan whisper that he loves him into the edge of his jaw. He lets himself believe it.

 

He will figure it out in the morning, Shen Wei decides, ducking his head to capture Zhao Yunlan’s bottom lip between his teeth. He swallows the desperate noise Zhao Yunlan makes. He memorizes how his ribs feel through his t-shirt, how warm he is perched on Shen Wei’s lap.

 

Shen Wei wonders if he will wake up in the morning in a world he understands. He wonders if it is all a dream, after all.

 

For now, he falls headfirst into it. He kisses Zhao Yunlan and touches his bare skin. Zhao Yunlan smiles against his lips and murmurs terms of endearment into Shen Wei’s ear. Shen Wei holds him closer and doesn’t let him go.

 

Shen Wei allows himself this moment to be a thief. He steals these moments and he does not, will not, think of the consequences.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

He wakes up, and he holds his breath.

 

He listens carefully to the world around him, waiting to hear—something. Shen Wei doesn’t know what he is bracing for but he braces anyway, locking down for impact. He waits. There is nothing odd. He breathes out and feels a body close by breathe in.

 

He opens his eyes. Zhao Yunlan sleeps mere inches away, so close that Shen Wei can feel his body heat soaking into the sheets between them. Zhao Yunlan is rumpled, body lithe and vulnerable without his many layers. His face is relaxed in sleep, his hair mussed from tossing and turning. His hand is reaching out for Shen Wei, mere centimeters from his skin as if Shen Wei had drifted out of his grasp and he is searching for him even in unconsciousness.

 

Shen Wei stares at the fingers stretched along the covers. He closes his eyes and bites back against the shudder that threatens to shake the foundations of his very being down to his bones. 

 

It is wrong, but it’s not. Shen Wei does not want to be anywhere else. Shen Wei cannot imagine a world, now, where he does not wake up next to Zhao Yunlan. He cannot wrap his mind around a reality where this is not his to take, where he cannot be greedy and ask for more than what he deserves.

 

Zhao Yunlan’s hand twitches, and his face curls just slightly into a frown as if he is unhappy. Shen Wei acts on instinct and puts his hand on top of Zhao Yunlan’s. Immediately, the crease on his brow disappears. His face relaxes again, wiping away all hints of a frown.

 

Shen Wei loves him. He loves him.

 

It used to be an all-encompassing, almost unwelcome feeling. Back in the old days of the first war, when Zhao Yunlan was Kunlun and Shen Wei had been almost painfully young and naive, Shen Wei hadn’t known where to put these feelings he had for the man. He held them in his hands like great big chunks of this world and he’d ask himself, where does one put something so overwhelming? Where does one keep something so valuable?

 

Shen Wei had wondered if he had the room inside of himself to fit how he felt for Kunlun, for Zhao Yunlan. Eventually, he realized he would have the room if he rebuilt parts of himself. He restructured everything on teetering, splintering boards to make room for the great big everything of Zhao Yunlan.

 

Shen Wei has always loved this man with more than he has ever had the room to love. Shen Wei would have done anything Zhao Yunlan asked him to do. If Zhao Yunlan had decided this world was not worth saving, Shen Wei may very well have spirited him away somewhere else and left the world to burn.

 

It had frightened him for a very long time. For the early parts of his life, Shen Wei’s focus had been his brother, and then the war. Zhao Yunlan and how much Shen Wei loved him has always been an intrinsic part of himself.

 

Shen Wei has long learned how to cope with loving Zhao Yunlan. It is new, realizing that he is loved in return. It is strange, seeing his own depthless devotion on Zhao Yunlan’s face.

 

He traces his fingers delicately, softly over Zhao Yunlan’s knuckles. He relaxes into the covers facing him. He watches him breathe, studies the way he looks in the sunlight of this new, incredible morning.

 

Shen Wei does not know how to be loved in any way that matters. He thinks, with his man, he would like to learn how.

 

He closes his eyes against the morning light and hopes it is real.

 

He opens his eyes, and it is.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Shen Wei goes to the university. He teaches a class he knows by heart and he doesn’t recognize any of his students. They are not faces he has ever seen before but they stare at him with respect and reverence. He remembers why there is some fear there, too, when one young man stutters into a question by prefacing it with, “Hei Pao Shi, sir—”

 

He teaches and he goes to his office. Two students stop by worrying about the subjects of their papers. He talks them through it and they nod along, eagerly taking notes. One young woman, after she has run out of questions, pauses in the doorway and thanks him for saving the world.

 

Shen Wei does not know these students but they ask the right questions. The world feels real. He recognizes his coworkers. The dean of students sees Shen Wei walking toward him and pales in fear as he tries to smile amicably. The woman who occupies the office across the hall still listens to violin music between lessons. Shen Wei hums along to the familiar melodies.

 

He thinks, maybe, there is something off-kilter about the world when Zhao Yunlan is too far away for him to see. Shen Wei thinks, maybe, that it’s always been that way. Shen Wei’s life had a regular rhythm before Zhao Yunlan crashed back into his life and trapped him with intelligent, familiar eyes. He doesn’t know how to live without him close by, as if his heart cannot figure out how to beat.

 

Shen Wei does not know if he is jumping at shadows or if his instincts are correct. As every piece sits comfortably in his life, Shen Wei wonders a little deeper.

 

He teaches another lesson. There’s a few familiar faces in this one. They call him Professor Shen and they aren’t afraid of him. They ask him intelligent questions like they have asked in all of their other classes with him. It does not feel like a false reality.

 

Shen Wei decides to walk home after his classes. Before he makes it past the gate to the university, he spies Zhao Yunlan waiting for him, perched on the hood of his red car and grinning knowingly, like he’s outsmarted him. Shen Wei walks up and kisses him without hesitating and it makes Zhao Yunlan smile even wider.

 

He will ride it out, Shen Wei decides. He will wait. He can be patient.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Days pass. A week. Every morning before he opens his eyes, Shen Wei holds his breath, but he is always tucked in soft sheets with Zhao Yunlan pressed against him, his face in Shen Wei’s neck, Shen Wei curled along his back. They fall into a regular routine. Zhao Yunlan stops looking at him with concern. Shen Wei has long learned the rules of this new reality.

 

A part of him keeps wondering if it is fake. A part of him is convinced he will wake up in his real world, with all its sharp edges and dreams that will not come true. Every morning, he wakes up here.

 

Shen Wei cannot shake the feeling of wrongness but it fuzzes at the edges with doubt. He looks for pieces that don’t fit and he cannot find them. He loses himself in Zhao Yunlan’s smiles and his intoxicating touches and the simple, sweet way Zhao Yunlan tells him he loves him.

 

A week turns into two, into three. 

 

Shen Wei stops holding his breath.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Shen Wei is making dinner when he hears the keys in the door. He’s smiling before he’s even completely turned around—Zhao Yunlan thunders in, half-stumbling, already trying to rip his boots off before he can even get the door open. He walks through the apartment, trailing clothes in his wake, and groans as he falls dramatically and head-first onto the bed.

 

“I need a new job,” Zhao Yunlan says into the sheets, muffled and exhausted. “Maybe I’ll be a waiter. Or a pilot. Is the university hiring?”

 

“I don’t think there’s a listing for pilots, no.”

 

“Such a funny guy,” Zhao Yunlan mutters before rolling over onto his back, groaning. He squints over at Shen Wei, eyes dancing with humor and mischief. Shen Wei loves him. “You should’ve seen it, Xiao Wei—me, being humble and dashing and charming, and an elderly Dixing woman who refused to wear her glasses even though all I needed her to do was fill out some paperwork. I tried to tell her that my handsome other half is the Envoy and she laughed in my face.”

 

“What did you do?”

 

“I tried to show her pictures but she still didn’t wear her glasses, and she said I was too silly,” he replied. “And then my recruit laughed at me. Honestly, I never thought I’d miss when my cases were life or death.”

 

“Poor Chief Zhao,” Shen Wei replies, turning back to the stove so Zhao Yunlan doesn’t see his smile. “How will your ego ever recover?”

 

Zhao Yunlan mutters something to himself, and then goes quiet. Shen Wei hears him shift, sitting upright in bed, and then shed another article of clothing. Shen Wei thinks it collides with the lamp, or at the least the half-full glass of water Zhao Yunlan left behind this morning. Either way, there is a porcelain rattle and a curse, and Shen Wei bites down against the laugh and the eye-roll he can feel building inside of him.

 

It’s easy. It’s simple. It’s everything he’s ever wanted and needed.

 

“I have to shower,” Zhao Yunlan announces as he pushes himself off of the bed. Shen Wei hears his soft scuffling steps walking closer so he isn’t surprised when Zhao Yunlan tucks his arms around Shen Wei’s waist, pressing his chest into his back and kissing the knob of his spine through his shirt. Shen Wei leans back into his hold; Zhao Yunlan tugs at Shen Wei’s shirt tucked into his pants and teasingly murmurs, “Want to join me?”

 

“Dinner,” Shen Wei reminds him, and Zhao Yunlan groans. He tugs at Shen Wei’s shirt again, but this time it’s halfhearted. Shen Wei can feel his smile against his back. 

 

“Next time,” he promises, leaving one last kiss against the side of Shen Wei’s neck before slipping away. Shen Wei hears another article of clothing hit the ground. He’s fairly sure it’s a shirt, and he nearly turns around to check. Just to steal a look. “Don’t miss me too much, Xiao Wei.”

 

Shen Wei shakes his head, fondness in his chest. Zhao Yunlan laughs before he closes the door behind him. After a moment, the shower turns on and Shen Wei focuses back on the cutting board, twirling the knife between his fingers.

 

He breathes in the smell of curing meat and spices. He can still feel the spots of his body Zhao Yunlan just touched, could practically still feel his warmth along his back. He ducks his head and smiles to himself, his little secret, before he moves the knife to keep cutting.

 

There is just a hint of wrongness before it goes sideways. Shen Wei barely has the time to brace himself, to curl his hand tighter around the knife in preparation to defend himself, when he hears a familiar voice ask from the living room, “Professor Shen?”

 

He whirls around. Zhu Hong stares at him, surprised. She glances at the knife in his hand and raises her hands in surrender. He immediately places the knife back on the counter, but he doesn’t let go.

 

“Zhu Hong,” he says. “How did you get in here?”

 

He has not seen her for a while. She looks tired, as if she hasn’t been sleeping through the night. She’s wearing a jacket he’s seen her wear a million times, her lips painted red. She glances around and pauses as if surprised to find where they are. Her eyes dart back to him and the surprise lingers there like an aftershock.

 

Shen Wei thinks he should be more surprised than he is to see her here. He thinks this should turn his world upside down. Instead, he just feels a rush of grief. He pushes it down, swallows the taste.

 

“Professor Shen,” she starts, and then stops. “Why are you in Chief Zhao’s apartment?”

 

An easy answer comes to his lips, one a truth and one a lie. He says neither of them. Zhu Hong glances around, confused, and sees the clothes on the ground. She sees the rumpled sheets. She tilts her head toward the sound of the running shower and realization flicks across her face. Her head snaps back to Shen Wei and he feels suddenly, violently, like he needs to hide.

 

“Zhu Hong,” he says, and this time he pulls his shoulders up, holding desperately onto whatever dignity he has left. “Why are you here?”

 

She stares at him for a long moment as if waiting for something. Her mouth twitches when he says nothing. She glances toward the shirt on the floor by her boot and looks up quickly like she’s seen something she isn’t supposed to see. She crosses her arms over her chest.

 

Shen Wei is not a fool. He knows Zhu Hong loves Zhao Yunlan, loves him with the devotion of first love and headstrong determination. He has long sympathized with her plight, but it has not stopped the rush of territoriality that rises in his chest like a growl. Even now, he wants to bear his teeth. He wants to show his claws.

 

Shen Wei is not a fool, even if he has acted like one. Even if he continues to act like one, like trying to catch a wave of water in his hands only to watch it slip through his fingers.

 

Shen Wei knows. He has always known. He does not know why he feels grief anyway. He does not know why he allowed himself to think, even in the back of his mind, that this is real.

 

Zhu Hong is not very good at hiding her thoughts on her face. He has thought this ever since he first met her and watched the way she dreamily watched Zhao Yunlan walk past. She is young for her kind and he sees it in the innocence of some of her behaviors, like trying to mind control him, like not knowing how to wear a mask. Shen Wei has spent most of his life wearing a mask. He figures that she will learn.

 

She has not learned yet, and he sees it on her face when she puts together the pieces. He sees the realization play across her face like a great tragedy on stage. He sees pity there. He looks away, feels it stab into the skin of his chest and carve its way deeper toward his heart.

 

“How long?” she asks. She must hear the water in the shower. She must be able to read the look on his face.

 

Shen Wei doesn’t answer. He doesn’t think he needs to, because the answer is rather self-evident. He’s sure now that he cannot hide the devastating grief on his face. He’s sure he cannot hide the sorrow. He has known better but he let himself believe anyway. Shen Wei wonders, in the last few weeks, when he stopped remembering that there will have to be a reckoning one way or the other.

 

He doesn’t know how to answer her so he doesn’t. Instead, he asks, “Dixingren?”

 

“It’s dreams,” she explains, and it makes sense. Of course it does, because this has always been a dream. It has always been too good to be true. “You’ve been—asleep, I guess. A couple of us have been. They sent me in to get you because I was the first one to beat it. Zhao Yunlan got me out.”

 

Shen Wei flinches when she says his name. She doesn’t bring it up, but he sees her gaze flicker sadly. “How long have I been under?”

 

“You’ve been the hardest to get to,” she admits. “A few days. Nearly a week, I think.”

 

A week of sleep for a month of an illusion. Shen Wei figures that is a fair exchange, all things considered. He would have given far more for far, far less.

 

Shen Wei spent ten thousand years underground, half-conscious, terrified, reaching into the cosmos for Kunlun only to find nothing. Shen Wei thinks that one day he will be grateful for this month. He thinks he will feel like a thief for it, but it is his. It is his because he has stolen it, but it is his.

 

“It was elaborate,” he says as if he needs an excuse. He sounds weary to his own ears. Defeated. 

 

“Mine was too,” Zhu Hong says, and it is kind. She is kind, even now, and Shen Wei is grateful. She scuffs her boots against the ground and smiles wryly to herself as she amends, “Well, mine was more memories than anything. That was worse, somehow. It was like I got to relive it all over again. I had all that hope again.”

 

She hesitates. She looks at the apartment again and there is a soft smile there. It is almost cruel. It is definitely sad.

 

“He loved me there, too,” she says, and he does not expect the intensity of the pain in his chest.

 

“Don’t,” he snaps, reflex. She turns her gaze back to him. Even like this, in her human form, her eyes shine just a little too red when they catch on light.

 

“Not in the right way,” she says, and scoffs. She shakes her head. “No, he’s never loved me like that. Even in my wildest dreams, I couldn’t make him love me.”

 

She sounds as if she is trying to tell him something that is obvious but Shen Wei does not know what. His mind is in ruins, broken and crumbling stone of sea walls, waves threatening to drown him. Shen Wei knows grief and he has always known this has not been real but it is almost worse, now, as he listens to Zhu Hong relate to all of the ways Zhao Yunlan has not loved them. Does not love them.

 

Shen Wei has always known this is a dream, even if he let it lull him into a sense of acceptance. Even when he was deep in denial, trying to mold this reality into a place where he could find a home forever, he noticed the writing on the wall. 

 

He has never been able to fool himself. Not all the way. For as much as he was willing to play ignorant, Shen Wei is still observant. He is still himself.

 

He has noticed the small errors—a shirt in the dresser that had long been bloodied and discarded, the genericness of his students’ names, the way faces seem to blur into insignificance the moment he moves his focus away from them. Shen Wei has not been able to shake that sense of wrongness from his bones that he felt when he first woke up here, no matter how he stopped holding his breath in the mornings. No matter how much easier it became to accept the things he does not deserve.

 

Shen Wei is not surprised that this world is false. Or, at the least, he should not feel the level of grief that he feels. He has known since the beginning that he cannot stay. This is not his world.

 

But it is a place where Zhao Yunlan loves him. False as it is, fake as it is, imaginary though it is—Zhao Yunlan loves him.

 

It hurts. His body aches. Shen Wei thinks he will have to recover from this illusion like he would a mortal wound. He wonders what kind of scars it will leave, irreparable and irreconcilable. 

 

“I wanted,” he starts to say, and then bites down hard on his tongue. Zhu Hong stares at him with a deep understanding that stings and they both know what he was going to say. I wanted it to be real.

 

“I did too,” she whispers, staring at an empty space over Shen Wei’s shoulder. “I was back in a world where there was the possibility that he would love me. I was convinced that this time it would work. But his heart has never been mine. It was foolish to hope.” She smiles. It is cruel, but not toward him. It is a hint of her own scars, of the way a dream can linger into waking hours and become nothing short of a nightmare. “Professor Shen—”

 

The water turns off in the bathroom. Shen Wei shocks backwards as if he has been electrocuted. That is not Zhao Yunlan. It never has been, but it was real like it could have been. Shen Wei cannot face this version of him now, knowing he cannot have it.

 

A clean break. When Zhao Yunlan was lost to him the first time, it was much that way. He was there, and then he was not, and Shen Wei was underground. He missed him with a horrible ache in his chest but there was never a moment of goodbye. The suddenness of it, for better or for worse, gave it a clean break. There was no fracture to set. No bones to move around to fit back into place.

 

Shen Wei does not want a goodbye. He does not want there to be dramatics or tears or the horrible, crushing dawning of everything that has only been inside of his head. He especially doesn’t want a witness. Zhu Hong is earnest and understanding but Shen Wei is humiliated enough. He has let her see too much as it is.

 

He has always been a fool for Zhao Yunlan. Shen Wei has always been willing to be whatever he needs to be to keep this abysmal, crushing hope in his chest.

 

Perhaps this is a wake up call. Maybe Shen Wei had hoped for too long. He has let it all go sour. He should find ways to move on. 

 

Perhaps it is a goodbye that Shen Wei needs.

 

It will not be this one, though. Shen Wei realizes he is still holding the knife and he lets his fingers relax. It falls and disappears halfway to the ground.

 

He wanted it to be real. Shen Wei so, so wanted it to be real.

 

He swallows his grief. Straightens his shoulders. He is a soldier and he is a fool. 

 

“It is time to wake up,” he says. Zhu Hong says nothing, simply reaching out her hand. Her eyes are soft and pitying. It makes Shen Wei angry.

 

He takes her hand, and she tugs. The world tilts and Shen Wei thinks he hears Zhao Yunlan confusedly calling his name. 

 

The floor shatters beneath their feet. Shen Wei is unconscious before he even thinks to brace himself.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~

 

When Shen Wei wakes, he holds his breath.

 

There is an ache in his limbs like he has not moved for a long time. He is lying on hard steel, his head pillowed. His head pounds with an inescapable pain. His throat is numb and dry. He hasn’t opened his eyes but he sees the light beyond his eyelids, stark and bright, pointed down on him like a spotlight.

 

He holds his breath. He holds it for so long his lungs ache. He holds it until his aching head spins. He holds it until he hears a familiar voice above him as if through water, pitched low and worried, and a warm hand touches his wrist.

 

Shen Wei flinches. The hand retreats immediately, and he hears his name.

 

He opens his eyes.

 

It is too bright. Horribly bright. He blinks against the glare and groans in pain. There’s a rush of more words and the lights dim. He blinks and blinks. Feels the pains in his joints. Feels the pains in his chest.

 

Shen Wei stares at the ceiling of Special Investigations. He does not look at the warmth against his right side. He does not look at the familiar voice, the cautious hand. Zhao Yunlan touches his shoulder this time. Shen Wei bites his tongue against flinching again.

 

It is cold and cruel and bright and real. It is horribly, horribly real.

 

Shen Wei looks over. Zhao Yunlan stares down at him anxiously and his whole body relaxes when their eyes meet. A worried brow smooths into a beautiful, relieved smile. Zhao Yunlan’s hand tightens to squeeze Shen Wei’s shoulder. Stiff, impersonal. Zhao Yunlan stands worriedly at his sickbed but somehow there is still a degree of separation. A space Shen Wei cannot cross.

 

This is real, he thinks. He looks into the eyes of a man who doesn't love him and thinks, this is real.

 

“There you are, Professor Shen,” Zhao Yunlan teases, grinning with too many teeth. There is bravado to hide the worry in his eyes. There is drama to hide the concern. Shen Wei is sure they have an audience. He can feel their eyes.

 

Shen Wei stares at Zhao Yunlan’s smile and closes his eyes. He knows they are watching him but he steals this moment for himself, anyway. His private goodbye.

 

He opens his eyes again and sees the others behind him. Chu Shuzhi lingers in the doorway, arms crossed. Lin Jing collapses in relief in his chair, Da Qing perched on the desk beside him. Guo Changcheng is smiling from next to another gurney. Zhu Hong sits up slowly and meets Shen Wei’s eyes. He looks away.

 

“My apologies,” Shen Wei begins, and does not finish. There are too many things to apologize for. He supposes this can be a little bit for all of them.

 

Zhao Yunlan shakes his head. He squeezes Shen Wei’s shoulder again, so tight he can feel each of his individual fingers press against his skin, and then pulls away. He rocks back on his heels and stuffs his hands into his pockets, shoulders hiked up to his ears. He grins like a mask. Shen Wei wishes he would take it off.

 

“That must have been one hell of a sleep, Xiao Wei,” Zhao Yunlan says, eyebrows arched. He is beautiful. He smiles like a mask but sometimes, Shen Wei thinks he means it. Shen Wei loves him and it has always hurt, but today it hurts. It hurts worse when Zhao Yunlan continues, simpers, teases, “So, Professor—what were you dreaming about?”

 

Shen Wei wears his masks, too. He knows this one is expressionless as he pushes himself upright. He is wearing a pair of sweatpants that are not his and a shirt that is. He is smacked with deja vu. He wonders how the Dixingren knew, and if it meant it to be cruel. 

 

He peels off a heart monitor on his pulse point. He runs a hand through his hair. His head pounds. His chest hurts. He looks at Zhao Yunlan and tastes sorrow on the back of his tongue. He thinks he will drown in it.

 

What was he dreaming of? Shen Wei has always chased the same dream. He has gotten so close he could feel it on his fingertips. He was close enough that he almost dragged it into the light.

 

“It was just a dream,” he says as if it can be so easily dismissed, as if it was that simple. 

 

Zhao Yunlan stares back at him with a blank, unfathomable expression and for a split second of gut-wrenching terror, Shen Wei thinks that he must know. And then in a blink, it’s gone, dissolving into another careless smile. A shrug that sheds all the tension in his shoulders. His hands are still in his pockets and Shen Wei thinks they are curled into fists.

 

“Well, I hope you enjoyed the rest,” Zhao Yunlan says too loud, “because we’ve got work to do.”

 

The others murmur something. Zhu Hong’s lips tighten and she glances at Shen Wei. He doesn't know how to read this particular expression on her face. He doesn’t think he wants to.

 

Shen Wei is sore and broken in new, irreparable ways. He wants to crawl into bed for a long time. He wants to burrow deep down into the dirt, perhaps until he reaches Dixing. He wants to stay in the dark where he does not have to see the light again. He thinks it would be better that way.

 

But there is a case to solve and a person to find. There is a fight to come and Shen Wei is a soldier. There is a world dangerously close to collapse and Shen Wei will be damned if he lets thousands of years of peace disintegrate into ash all because he could not save his own brother.

 

There is an empty part of him now. Shen Wei thinks he will always live with it. He thinks he will find room for it. He has carried many burdens before. He will carry this one, too.

 

So he squares his shoulders. He meets Zhao Yunlan’s eyes. He feels the rightness of his reality and he breathes it in deep. Holds it there for a long, long moment.

 

And then lets it go.

 

“Let’s get to work,” he agrees. 

 

~*~*~*~*~

 

It takes two more days to locate the Dixingren dream master. They have to incapacitate him before they get too close, lest anyone goes under again, but it is simple once they know what they are doing. There isn’t much of a fight, and Shen Wei even manages to learn the power in the interim. He feels it crawl into his bones and he smothers it down and away. He is afraid he will want to use it on himself. He is afraid he will want to stay there.

 

He leaves the Dixingren on the floor of a prison cell and leaves before anyone can see him. There are spies in Dixing now. There are those who would like to see him dead. His brother has eyes everywhere. Shen Wei does not have the time to root out the corruption right now—it will have to wait.

 

Although the dream master is not a future seer, Shen Wei thinks there is truth built into the bones of his illusion. He thinks there will be a war. He thinks the shadows of death and devastation will linger. Shen Wei has a bad feeling about the events looming on the horizon but he tries to bury them deep. He tries to call them doubts.

 

They are one step closer to war. Shen Wei hopes they will be ready for it when it comes.

 

The world does not quite return to normal once Shen Wei wakes, but he thinks that’s his fault. He is changed, skin-deep. He knows what he wants and what it could feel like. He has indulged in it. 

 

Shame and grief and sorrow. Shen Wei is back where he belongs with a man he has always missed but he has never felt further away from him. He stands next to him and he feels universes away. Zhao Yunlan looks at Shen Wei with something strange hidden in his eyes and Shen Wei does not know how to get this man to be honest with him when Shen Wei cannot be honest in return.

 

After the dream master is gone, Zhao Yunlan invites Shen Wei to share takeout in his apartment. Shen Wei follows, helpless, and tries not to notice that Zhao Yunlan is very quiet as he drives.

 

They take the food and sit at the sofa to eat. It is a painful echo. Shen Wei remembers the taste of a dream telling him that he loves him and he curls his hands tight enough into fists that his nails break the skin.

 

At first, they don’t say much. Shen Wei has always appreciated how Zhao Yunlan, a person so filled with action and noise, can appreciate the quiet peace between them. He does not like it today, head too full, memories a disjointed mess. Every step forward, Shen Wei feels as if he has missed a stair. As if he is in a brief, panic-filled drop before he is able to right himself.

 

Zhao Yunlan does not stay silent for long. He is lightning in a bottle, even thoughtful and quiet. He keeps glancing sidelong at Shen Wei, chewing solemnly, and Shen Wei lets him make the first move, raw and real.

 

Zhao Yunlan takes in a breath through his nose. He exhales and asks, “When you were asleep—it wasn’t a nightmare, right? Zhu Hong says it wasn’t but I can’t be sure.”

 

“It wasn’t,” Shen Wei says. It should be a lie, but no—it was not a nightmare, despite the devastation it left behind. Zhao Yunlan’s shoulders relax by small degrees and Shen Wei feels a flicker of surprise. “It was bothering you, that it might have been.”

 

“Well, yeah,” Zhao Yunlan admits freely, and shrugs. “You haven’t been able to look at me for days. I figured there was a reason.”

 

Devastation. Shen Wei swallows something like misery and says, “No. That isn’t your fault.”

 

Zhao Yunlan stares down at his bowl. His mouth ticks into a bitter smile like he doesn’t believe him. 

 

Shen Wei doesn’t understand these little movements, cannot find a meaning for the look on Zhao Yunlan’s face. He reaches toward him and Zhao Yunlan flinches. Shen Wei pulls his hand back to his body and tucks it away, stomach turning. There is a picture taking shape in his head and it terrifies him.

 

“Zhao Yunlan,” he says. Pleads.

 

Zhao Yunlan swallows like it hurts and looks up at Shen Wei. There’s a beautiful, sad smile on his face. His shoulders are curled in defeat, as if he has lost the war before they have even begun to fight. Shen Wei half expects to see blood on his hands.

 

“Xiao Wei,” Zhao Yunlan replies, a little sadly, but he is still smiling. Always pretending to be something he is not. “You know, when I went into Zhu Hong’s dream, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought it would be simple, you know, or hard to figure out because that’s how dreams usually are, right? But then I got there and it was all about how she thinks she loves me. How she changed in an attempt to be someone that I would want.” Zhao Yunlan is quiet for a moment. He stares at his hands. “She wanted me to love her. Wants. But I—”

 

Zhao Yunlan stops talking. He is still staring at his hands. Shen Wei is staring at his face and he feels dread behind his ribs. He almost wants to beg Zhao Yunlan to stop speaking. He is not sure if he is ready to lose Zhao Yunlan again, so soon.

 

Shen Wei says nothing. Zhao Yunlan looks up at him with a newfound desperation. His eyes are restless as they look at Shen Wei’s face, as if he is looking for something.

 

“I don’t love her,” Zhao Yunlan confesses, and Shen Wei feels it like a blow to the stomach. “I can’t. It just felt so unfair to keep her hoping for something that couldn’t ever happen. I broke her heart right then and there.”

 

Shen Wei sees where this is going. He sees the end of the tunnel and he thinks he is going to be sick. If he had not frozen into stone, he would have already been on his feet. He would have fled like a coward. A painful, jagged break that would never quite heal.

 

But Shen Wei was not a coward. Shen Wei loves him. He locks down for impact when Zhao Yunlan meets his eyes. 

 

“It broke her dream. I dragged her out.” Zhao Yunlan hesitates, and then says, “And then I went into yours.”

 

Shen Wei’s world is real but he feels it crumble to pieces around him. He has grappled with a grief he does not deserve for days now but he feels it rising again worse than before. Shen Wei should have known. He thinks he knew, from the look in Zhao Yunlan’s eyes on that first day. He has once again grappled with denial and lost, only to be dumped out into a cruel, unforgiving reality.

 

He realizes Zhao Yunlan is reaching for him and he shocks back, skittering away like a wounded animal. Zhao Yunlan keeps his hand extended. It lingers in the empty space between them, fingers extended. There is a strange kind of grief on Zhao Yunlan’s face but he doesn’t take his hand back.

 

“I wasn’t there long before the dream master forced me out,” Zhao Yunlan admits softly, as if ashamed. “Just for a few moments.”

 

Long enough. Zhao Yunlan was there long enough. Shen Wei reconsiders his decision not to flee.

 

“Zhao Yunlan,” he manages to say and it comes out as a cracked, broken thing. “I—”

 

“Xiao Wei,” Zhao Yunlan interrupts, and it almost sounds as if he is laughing. There is a smile at the corners of his eyes but he does not look amused. Shen Wei is moments from rocketing out of his own skin but there is a moment of blazing clarity where he realizes—Zhao Yunlan looks relieved. 

 

“Listen to me,” Zhao Yunlan says, sliding to the floor to kneel in front of him, grabbing at his knees. Shen Wei is knocked breathless by the parallels, down to the sweet something in Zhao Yunlan’s eyes, and he practically falls apart with it. “Xiao Wei, listen—of course I—how can you think—”

 

It’s disjointed, practically nonsensical. Zhao Yunlan keeps starting sentences he does not finish, a manic look in his eyes. Shen Wei has never seen this look on his face. That is how he knows it is real, no matter how unbelievable.

 

He reaches out and grips Zhao Yunlan’s wrist just to feel his pulse under his fingers. Zhao Yunlan’s entire body lets out a breath as if he has been holding it, as if it is a relief to know that Shen Wei understands.

 

“I want,” Zhao Yunlan begins. And hesitates.

 

And isn’t that the crux of it all? Shen Wei thinks it with bitterness, with ire, with a hoarse desperation he can feel crawling up his throat like a scream. He wants, but. They want, but.

 

There is always something bigger than them. There is always a reason that Shen Wei has wanted to reach out, but hesitated. Even now, with Zhao Yunlan on his knees before him like he is begging, an intense yearning on his face, his hands gripping Shen Wei’s knees so hard that his fingertips will leave bruises, there is a conditional. There is a yawning chasm between them that they cannot cross.

 

Zhao Yunlan has always looked at Shen Wei like he likes him, like he cares for him. Now, there is a shattered mask on the ground and Zhao Yunlan is on his knees, looking at Shen Wei for the first time like he loves him, raw and unfiltered and unapologetic. Too raw to be anything but real.

 

I want. 

 

Shen Wei wants. Oh, how he wants. But he understands, too, what Zhao Yunlan is trying to say. It is his wildest dream come to life but he feels them both pulling away and somehow, he understands. It stings and it is horrible and he understands.

 

There is a war coming. There is an evil whispering beyond the shadows. There is a calling out there bigger than either of them. There are secrets Shen Wei has kept that come between them. Zhao Yunlan does not know who Kunlun is and how can Shen Wei ask this of him when there is an entire lifetime missing from his understanding of just how deeply Shen Wei wants?

 

Shen Wei reaches out with a shaking hand and puts his fingers in Zhao Yunlan’s hair. Zhao Yunlan shudders with his entire body and slumps forward to bury his head in Shen Wei’s thigh.

 

Even in my wildest dreams, I couldn’t make him love me, Zhu Hong had said with a pointed sorrow. Shen Wei stares down at a Zhao Yunlan curled in his lap and he finally understands. He feels the realization slot into place. He thinks he will feel grief for her, later, when he comes back to his bones. When it stops feeling so real.

 

Zhao Yunlan cannot love Shen Wei in the way Shen Wei loves him because he does not understand it all yet. He doesn’t know about the world thousands of years ago. He has not yet met a young Dixingren on a cliff’s edge and captured his heart as if it was easy. As if he had known all along what it would take. As if he has always known that Shen Wei’s heart was his to take.

 

Shen Wei runs his fingers through Zhao Yunlan’s hair. He closes his eyes.

 

The timing is wrong. It’s almost funny. Ten thousand years of waiting and this, now, is the wrong time. They could not have gotten here without that time. They have nowhere to go with these bare, broken half-confessions. They have somehow managed to run out of time.

 

Except, Shen Wei whispers in the back of his mind. Except.

 

Perhaps there will be time when this can make sense. Where they can steal the time away from the world and their duties and learn how to love in a way that works. Shen Wei wants to believe that there is a future carved out for them, waiting in the wings. He likes to think that there will be a time soon where they can reach for it. Bring it into the light.

 

They will take the pieces they can have for now, he thinks. They can steal the moments that they can. They can make it all fit into a shape and a life that makes sense when they have the time. Shen Wei hopes, down to his bones, that they will have the time. He vows to make it happen. 

 

Shen Wei has lived an illusion where it has worked out. He is willing to give whatever it takes to rip a future out of the jaws of fate. Shen Wei has waited so long. He has loved so hopelessly. He is not afraid of the impossible, not when Zhao Yunlan is so close to loving him all the way.

 

There is so much to come, Shen Wei knows. There is so much for Zhao Yunlan to learn. He holds him close anyway, dauntingly aware of the building sense of time running out. Zhao Yunlan shifts to wind his arms around Shen Wei’s hips, tilting his chin up and resting it on his thigh as he looks up at him.

 

He is beautiful. Shen Wei loves him. He dares to believe Zhao Yunlan will learn to love him back. He lets himself hope that Zhao Yunlan, in the space between now and after, will understand what an unfathomable thing love can be.

 

They have time. They do not have much of it.

 

Shen Wei kisses him anyway. Zhao Yunlan surges up eagerly, wrapping his arms around Shen Wei’s neck and settling into his lap. His fingers dip into Shen Wei’s hair. Shen Wei tastes Zhao Yunlan’s smile with his tongue and he knows it is real.

 

There is something horrible ahead. There is time they cannot afford to waste. Shen Wei can feel the shadows at their heels and he knows there is only so long they can outrun them. If the illusion is to believed, even the dregs of it, there will be a war and battles and losses to come. He holds Zhao Yunlan close anyway. He dares to hope for something better than the aching dread in his bones.

 

Eventually, they will pull apart. There will be words they won’t say, but one day they will. They’ll finish their meal and Shen Wei will run his hands through Zhao Yunlan’s hair. Zhao Yunlan will press kisses along his throat. It will be a beginning. It will be enough, even if it cannot yet be everything.

 

Shen Wei has been patient. He has been foolish. He will wait, and he will hope.

 

For now, it is enough that it is real.