Archive of Our Own

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Opening Weekend/Marketplace Weekend
8/7 - 8/8

Open wide the gates! We’re back at the Faire this weekend!

Bring on the Joust!

Spend over $250 at our many vendor booths and receive a voucher for free tickets for any of the other weekends this year!

The best part of the Renaissance Faire is that it’s hard enough to get to that everyone who goes through the effort is both a huge fucking nerd and ecstatic to be there.

(Jiang Cheng would say that it’s the corsets, but Jiang Cheng is wrong. Jiang Cheng also hasn’t looked at another girl since Wen Qing almost looked back at him two years ago so really, Jiang Cheng needs to stop with the performative masculinity already.)

Well. Okay. The best part of the Renaissance Faire is Lan Zhan, but Lan Zhan is the best part of existing and it doesn’t seem fair to include him in normal lists. So. Nerds. Fucking best.

But they’re not here yet because it’s not the weekend yet. So actually, Lan Zhan. Final answer. Ha.

Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng have just gotten set up in their assigned camping spot and should be on their way to visit Yanli, who is setting up her booth. It’s been so weird this year with her going to different faires than them (husbands ruin everything).

But then Wei Ying sees the Lan’s booth and it would be rude not to say hi.

He already knew they were here, of course. Even if he hadn’t made Lan Zhan swear up and down that they were going to be reunited here, faire folk tend to have pretty distinctive housing that they haul around with them from place to place.

Wei Ying only needs to do a survey of the campground to figure out who he’ll be working/living with. The Wens and the Nies are here too.

Faire folk tend to be split into locals, who only work the closest faire or two to where they live while they hold down a week job, and travelers, who spend most of their year on the road going from faire to faire.

If you try really hard, you can work all year round, crossing the entire continental U.S. with the seasons. Most people only bother with spring through fall, taking winter off to regroup and reset for the coming busy season, but you can do all year round if you want to.

And if you both try really hard, and are really good, you’ll have your pick of contracts.

The point being: there are a lot of different faires out there with overlapping schedules and a million different ways to cobble together a living. So you aren’t always working with the same people even if your core group of friends/family all bounce from faire to faire same as you.

Which means that they first order of business when setting up at a new campsite is checking out who else is there.

It’s a lot of tents and RV’s for the most part (ranging from the Wen’s I-can’t-believe-it’s-still-running camper van with supplementary tent, to the Nie’s costs-more-than-a-house-in-most-areas RV).

Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng share their parent’s old RV, which is definitely big enough for them to both live in seeing as they grew up living in it along with Yanli and their parents, but Wei Ying prefers sleeping in a tent.

(And pretending that Jiang Cheng kicked him out, it’s hilarious watching Jiang Cheng try to explain to Wen Qing why he isn’t actually a terrible brother. You’d think, over the years it would register that Wen Ning also chooses to sleep in a tent most of the time, but no. Jiang Cheng is an anxious monster who cares way too much what everyone else thinks about him.)

The Lans have an honest to god yurt, with a tiny camp stove with a chimney in the center and carpeting that lives on top of the tarp floor so you absolutely cannot wear shoes inside. It’s so cute it makes Wei Ying’s heart hurt.

Sometimes the rotating cast is great, because it turns that month in California into a nostalgia fueled reunion every year, or like, it gives Wei Ying something new to focus on so he doesn’t get so fucking bored doing the same show year after year.

Sometimes it’s awful, like when your sister marries one of the knights who gets legit hired to actually fucking joust and is part of some weird guild that only works certain “level” faires, as if one kind of historically inaccurate is better than another kind of historically inaccurate.

And sometimes the love of your life doesn’t actually have a psychic connection with you and chooses the Wrong Faire to go to for most of July and what even is the point of getting out of bed in the morning if there’s no Lan Zhan to possibly run into?

Devastating.

(To be fair, Xichen is absolutely the Lan brother who handles the scheduling, and to be extra fair, Lan Zhan doesn’t even know that he’s the love of Wei Ying’s life. It’s fine.)

“It was three fucking weeks,” Jiang Cheng yells, as Wei Ying throws himself off course. “We haven’t seen Yanli in months!”

The Lans sell flower crowns and hair accessories, all handcrafted (from hair pins and combs all the way up to these wicked headpieces they wear that have nothing to do with Ye Olde England and everything to do with Ye Olde China. No one knows how they got those approved to sell, but sell they do).

For no extra charge they’ll help you style your hair to show your new purchase to it’s best advantage. They are *extremely* popular with a certain set of faire attendee.

And with Wei Ying.

“Lan Zhan!” Wei Ying shouts as he tumbles into the shop.

Because it’s a weekday and there aren’t any patrons, the brothers are in their casual wear of plain t-shirts and jeans. Jiang Cheng is convinced that they share clothes, but Wei Ying has pushed his way into laundry day enough times to say with authority that they do not.

They just share a similar aesthetic.

One that is wildly impractical for living in the campsites around faire grounds, given all the whites and pastels and acid wash, but Wei Ying admires the level of distain for like, physics or whatever, that it must take for them to look calmly immaculate throughout.

“Wei Ying,” Xichen says, with a nod, while Wei Ying attaches himself to Lan Zhan’s waist.

Lan Zhan gives a small sigh, but otherwise doesn’t react to Wei Ying hugging him, just continuing to hang the wall of hair pins and sticks and whathaveyou. The casual observer might take this as a rejection, but the casual observer has no idea what they’re talking about.

The acceptance is subtle, but it’s there. There in the way that Lan Zhan’s hand skims over Wei Ying’s shoulders with each new addition to the wall and the way that he hasn’t physically thrown Wei Ying out of the shop (something he is fully capable of doing (seriously, he’s done it)).

“Did you miss me?” Wei Ying says, slowly increasing the pressure around Lan Zhan’s waist until Lan Zhan gives a slight pull to Wei Ying’s braid, grown long especially so he can ask Lan Zhan to style it.

“I’m taking that as a yes,” Wei Ying says, and Lan Zhan pulls at his braid again.

“You haven’t been using the hair mask I gave you,” Lan Zhan points out.

Which like, no. Of course Wei Ying hasn’t. It’s so much effort when your access to water is limited and what if Lan Zhan stops talking to Wei Ying if he doesn’t have to yell at Wei Ying about ignoring his haircare advice?

“We can have a spa day!” Wei Ying says, trying to sound spontaneous and not like he’s been planning that since he first found out that he and Lan Zhan were going to be separated for weeks.

“Mn,” Lan Zhan says, in a tone that is cautious agreement, conditional on who else turns up the day of. Lan Zhan develops sudden amnesia about agreeing to shit when he doesn’t like whoever else is involved, but always comes through now when it’s just him and Wei Ying.

“Wei Ying,” Jiang Cheng says, sticking his head into the booth. “Yanli is waiting.”

Wei Ying rolls his eyes because Jiang Cheng’s ability to exude oldest, middle, and youngest sibling energy all at the same time is absolutely absurd. But he does miss Yanli.

“Fine,” he says, pulling away from Lan Zhan.

“Spa day! You promised!” he says, pointing at Lan Zhan on his way out. Lan Zhan waves him off, already trying to distance himself from the proposed plan. Terrible sign, but Wei Ying will persevere. Only by attempting the impossible does it become possible, yadda yadda whatever.

“I told you he’d miss you,” Xichen says, sounding far too smug for a man who never seems to realize that both of his Best Friends Forever are trying to get into his pants.

“Yes, you are a romantic genius,” Lan Zhan says, not bothering to hide his sarcasm, focusing instead on making sure that his exhale is steady. The first interaction with Wei Ying after a time apart is always a bit of an out-of-body experience.

He never actually believes that Wei Ying will be there until Wei Ying shows up. He’s like a force of nature, impossible to wrap your mind around when he’s not present.

“There are worse places to start off than friends,” Xichen says.

Having an older brother who is both a hopeless romantic and also always front row for your embarrassing interactions with the completely oblivious love of your life is the worst.

Lan Zhan still isn’t sure what charity project made Wei Ying offer him friendship in the first place.

Xichen had already been working the circuit on and off for a couple of years when he asked Lan Zhan to join him for the largest show he’d gotten a contract for yet. He was worried about being able to keep the stock up for a fair whose daily guests numbered in the tens of thousands.

Or so he said.

The truth of the matter was that Lan Zhan had just finished a degree that he didn’t know what to do with and wasn’t looking forward to moving back in with their uncle while he figured it out. Xichen, exemplary older brother that he is, had offered Lan Zhan an alternative option.

So Xichen had barely needed him (Xichen is a control freak and doesn’t actually want help, even when said help is something he asked for and is being given by a grateful little brother who is more than willing to accept any and all rules handed down, it’s fine), and Wei Ying had found him wandering on his very first day.

And then every day after, it felt like.

He said that he was showing Lan Zhan the ropes, imparting his superior knowledge, but it’s been years and Wei Ying is still walking around calling himself Lan Zhan’s sponsor. Sponsor for what, he can never settle on.

Society, Lan Zhan guesses. Life in general.

At first he had found Wei Ying alarming and incredibly annoying. Presumptuous. Possibly plotting some kind of humiliating prank on Lan Zhan, because they didn’t seem to have anything in common so why would he keep coming back?

Over time he’d learned that that was just who Wei Ying was. Gathering people and making friends with everyone and keeping up that friendship forever whether or not the other person wanted it.

Lan Zhan very much wants it.

“Xichen?” Guangyao calls out as he walks into the booth. Lan Zhan has to fight not to grimace. Guangyao’s greeting of Xichen is going to be much longer and more involved than Lan Zhan’s own with Wei Ying, which makes Lan Zhan in turns jealous and discomfited.

It shouldn’t bother Lan Zhan if it doesn’t bother Xichen, but he can’t help but feel that there are ulterior motives there that Xichen doesn’t know about. It’s why he, himself, always tries to hold back with Wei Ying. It isn’t fair to take advantage of someone unsuspecting like that.

By the time Guangyao and Xichen are done with their greetings, Mingjue is knocking on the door frame, and the whole ritual has to be repeated (outside this time, Mingjue always looks like he thinks he’s going to break the entire shop of delicate accessories when he comes inside, so Xichen does his best to meet him outside).

To be honest, when Lan Zhan is wearing the full headpiece Xichen designed for him, he doesn’t feel like he fits into the shop either. He feels too tall by far (the headpieces keep getting bigger and he doesn’t know how to approach Xichen about stopping whatever contest he has going with himself).

Lan Zhan volunteers to finish the work they’d planned to do today so that the threesome can go back to the campsite and get dinner started. When Lan Zhan catches up with them, there will be just enough food for the four of them, even though everyone will pretend that they had planned on eating separately.

Like Lan Zhan wasn’t in charge of grocery shopping and making sure that they had the ingredients for Guangyao and Mingjue’s favorites. Like this doesn’t happen whenever they’re all at a faire together.

Not for the first time, Lan Zhan finds himself jealous of Huaisang, who has always managed to wiggle out of these situations. Then again, Huaisang’s brother isn’t the one being circled, so dinner is rarely being interrupted at the Nie campsite.

(Which is ridiculous, the Nie campsite has a far superior cooking/dining set up. Lan Zhan loves his brother with all his heart, but some people are not afraid to take full advantage of the amenities provided and Lan Zhan wishes to be one of them.)

Lan Zhan takes the long way back to the campsite, swinging by the grounds’ management office.

Uncle throughly disapproves of both of his nephews “running off to joining the circus like recalcitrant children” but he also keeps careful track of all their movements and sends them packages wherever they go.

Without fail, whenever they set up somewhere new, by the time they get there, there is always a styrofoam box packed with what he deems to be both essential and impossible to get “out there”. It always takes up the whole mini-fridge Lan Zhan convinced Xichen they needed.

Why their uncle is so convinced that there is no tofu available in America outside of NYC, Lan Zhan doesn’t know. Just like he doesn’t understand where their uncle thinks his farmer’s market vegetables come from.

Nonetheless, he’s trying. Lan Zhan should probably try harder back.

Wei Ying plasters himself against the door into Lan’s Accessories and presses his face against the glass even though he just watched Lan Zhan clean it.

The past twenty-four hours have been a whirlwind of getting campsites set up and working out safety checks on the the new stages and finalizing schedules. Any extra time has been spent helping Yanli set up her displays and back stock.

She runs her shop alone even though she could probably afford to hire someone, so she can’t make a run for re-stocking (or anything else) without shutting down her shop. Which no one wants to do opening weekend, a.k.a. marketplace weekend, because that’s when the heavy shoppers show up.

Yanli won’t be hit quite as hard as the people who do the big costume pieces, the corsets and the armor and the weaponry. But she’s still going to do more business this weekend than on the others, and she always does good business. Good prep is key.

Officially, she sells “paper goods”. You would think that that would mean stationary, and you wouldn’t be completely wrong. She has notebooks, and bookmarks, and cards, and these ridiculous thread books that seem to be used to store everything but thread.

But then she has bushels of paper roses attached to wire stems that she guilts couples into buying for each other, decorative garlands, jars full of wishes. Earrings, headbands, necklaces. If Yanli can hot glue a paper something to it, she sells it.

(If she can tie it in knots or attach beads to it, she also probably sells it, but the paper goods have been slowly but surely pushing out dad’s designs since he and mom decided to retire.)

Technically, she’s the Lan’s direct competitor because she sells a lot of paper flower crowns (and hairpins, and fascinators), but she and Xichen are both the kill you with kindness types, so it’s all friendly competition.

Most things are made out of plain paper (good quality, but still, paper), but some are painted, and some are made out of dying books and the piles of playbills Yanli gets friends of hers in NYC to send to her to appeal to the theater kids (Ren Faires are Extremely popular with the theater kid set).

Vendors have to get everything they sell approved, because claiming to care about historical accuracy is the largest lie the Renaissance Faire will try to sell you, but sometimes Yanli starts fiddling with paper and the next thing you know she’s selling it.

She sold Wei Ying’s notes and book reports multiple times growing up, when she wasn’t an official vendor, just setting up a small display of little paper animals and flowers she’d taught herself how to make, off to the side of mom’s show or in a corner of dad’s shop.

Anyway.

Wei Ying’s reunion with Lan Zhan has involved a lot less Lan Zhan than he was hoping, so now that he’s in his costume and the stages are set and the mics are maybe working, And there’s a whole twenty minutes left before the gates are supposed to open, it’s time to fix that.

“Busy, Wei Ying,” Lan Zhan says as he opens the door and pushes Wei Ying into the seat for customers getting a more complicated style done.

Because of course, Lan Zhan is also a vendor. He also has to be ready to work for the next ten or so hours without a real break and no time to restock. And his stock is mostly costume pieces the people like to buy first thing so they can wear them around.

Lan Zhan doesn’t have time for him.

Wei Ying doesn’t mind. He has a hair-tie tucked under his bracers and a ribbon to hide it if he has to do his hair himself. Watching Lan Zhan float around looking vaguely stressed is enough for now.

(He totally minds. He has a running tally of the times that Lan Zhan pays attention to him vs. when he doesn’t. Lan Zhan ignoring him makes Wei Ying feel like he’s dying inside.)

“So like, what era are these hanfu supposed to be from?” Wei Ying says.

“Why are your pants from a different century than your tunic?” Xichen asks back.

It’s an old joke, and not a particularly good one, but it’s tradition. While everyone working the faire is subjected to a somewhat ridiculous dress code, the vendors and entertainers are allowed to flout rules in ways that the actors and operations staff are not.

An actor found wearing something deemed inappropriate will be fired, while Wei Ying gets allowances deemed necessary for safety concerns in his acts, and the Lans just do what they want.

Their uncle is a history professor and any time anyone challenges them on anything, they come back the next day with articles and citations and honestly, no one can be bothered. Also, the guy in charge of vendors here is Guangyao, who definitely isn’t going to tell Xichen off for anything.

“I’m an immortal who takes extremely good care of his belongings,” Wei Ying says, patting at his costume fondly. It’s almost worn out, the black fading to grey and red edging towards pink. He’ll have to figure out a new one soon.

Or maybe he’ll really embrace the whole vagrant rogue thing he’s been playing with. Lot’s of patches. See if he can give Guangyao a migraine even though Guangyao isn’t supposed to have anything to do with entertainers anymore.

“Did you change anything?” Lan Zhan says, forcing Wei Ying into an upright, non-lounging position and starting to brush through Wei Ying’s hair with his personal brush even though Wei Ying has watched him with enough customers to know that Lan Zhan generally just finger-combs.

“No. Everyone’s boring and won’t let me,” Wei Ying says. He really should get his own act some day, then he can mess around with it as much as he wants. Everyone else is all about consistency and safety.

And by everyone else, he means Huaisang and Jiang Cheng (mostly Jiang Cheng, Huaisang is much more willing to negotiate). He’s been working on Wen Ning for ages, but Wei Ying hasn’t been able to convince him that he should play a bigger role in a show than the one he currently does with his sister.

Wen Ning Should be doing impressive things with archery or like, feats of strength, but instead he runs support for Wen Qing on her trained rats and acrobatics show, and somehow gets press-ganged into helping every third person he passes.

Except for Wei Ying.

Not that Wei Ying has time in his schedule to do another show. He’s already pushing things by doing the two.

“Fail a few magic tricks, succeed at a few magic tricks, throw some knives, dodge a whip,” Wei Ying says, waving a hand. “It’s all the same.”

“Mn,” Lan Zhan says, like he doesn’t quite believe Wei Ying.

“There may be a smidge more fire than there used to be,” Wei Ying admits. “But it shouldn’t get anywhere near me.”

He watches Lan Zhan hesitate in the mirror, before he sweeps all of Wei Ying’s hair up into a topknot, using entirely modern hair elastics and bobby pins to secure it.

“Lan Zhan, how am I supposed to keep my balance if I can’t hold only my hair?” Wei Ying asks, purely to see an annoyed eye flicker.

Lan Zhan doesn’t rise to the bait, instead he pulls down an accessory that Wei Ying has seen in dramas, but doesn’t know the name for, to wrap around the topknot and stabs a decorative pin through.

When Wei Ying starts to protest (“Everyone knows you’re supposed to wait and see what doesn’t sell before unloading unwanted merchandise on unwitting friends, Lan Zhan!”) and Lan Zhan takes Wei Ying’s shoulders and literally shakes him to check the stability of his work.

It holds better than anything Wei Ying has ever managed and Lan Zhan didn’t even break out the contraband hairspray (good thing too, the Lan’s hairspray almost always comes with a healthy dose of glitter that takes about a month to wash out).

“It feels a little loose, on the side,” Wei Ying says, because he still has five minutes and he wants Lan Zhan’s hands back in his hair.

He avoids Xichen’s knowing gaze in the mirror. Xichen knows nothing. Everyone knows that Mingjue and Guangyao are hopelessly in love, but does Xichen notice? No. He does not. He is a total pining novice.

Lan Zhan runs his hands over Wei Ying’s hair again, but doesn’t properly indulge him.

“It’s fine,” Lan Zhan says, abandoning Wei Ying in the chair to go back to what he was doing before Wei Ying interrupted him. “Be careful.”

“It’s either fine, or I need to be careful.”

Lan Zhan sighs. Or, you know, looks off to the side slightly. It doesn’t matter. Wei Ying can feel the disappointment.

“Be careful of the fire, Wei Ying,” he says.

Oh.

Right.

That.

Jiang Cheng cranes his neck to see if he can find Wei Ying in the crowd near the gates even though he knows he won’t. He knew this was going to happen even before Wei Ying flew off to stare after Lan Zhan like there isn’t work to be done.

The first half hour the gates are open of any faire day all the performers gather by the gates to try and convince everyone walking in to come see their show first, or at whatever point they’re scheduled.

And then the actors barge in and start doing their irritating little skits because they’re paid a flat rate, what do they care if they screw up an entertainer’s tip situation?

Depending on your position and contract, you may or may not be paid a reasonable amount for your time, so making tips from people watching your shows is paramount, and the best way to do that is to get a large crowd.

Jiang Cheng is terrible at this part. He’s loud enough to shout over everyone else, sure, but he’s not charming and he’s straight up terrible at selling himself. He doesn’t want to have to convince someone he’s going to do something impressive, he just wants to do the impressive thing.

Wei Ying says it’s because Jiang Cheng is too proud, too worried about what people think, too easily humiliated. So much excess of feelings.

They’ve spent their entire lives coming up with scripts for him to say, but they never work. He always panics halfway through.

The whole opening thing really just highlights all of Jiang Cheng’s weaknesses. That’s why Wei Ying is always supposed to be there.

It’s both their livelihoods, after all.

Jiang Cheng scans the crowd one last time as the bell gets rung that means they’re about to start letting people through. He fights through the instinctive swoop his stomach makes when he sees Wen Ning, because where Wen Ning is, Wen Qing won’t be far.

Wen Ning is also terrible at selling himself. But where Jiang Cheng gets buttoned up and aggressive about it, Wen Ning gets extra small and pitiful. Sometimes people hand him tips just for existing, like they’re suddenly okay with beggars if they come with a fun costume and look sad.

Society is fucked up.

“Brother abandon you?” Wen Qing says to his left, just to make him jump.

She sneaks up on him on purpose. She thinks it’s funny that someone as loud as him is also jumpy. She never seems to figure out the fact that he’s only jumpy around Her.

“What else is new?’ Jiang Cheng says.

“Unfilial!” Wei Ying yells, jumping onto Jiang Cheng’s back. “Respect your elders!”

Jiang Cheng twists to the side and dumps Wei Ying off, unfortunately between him and Wen Qing. Brothers are the worst.

“You’re like, five minutes older than me,” Jiang Cheng says, but the complaint lacks heat. He’s too relieved that Wei Ying is there.

It’s also more like five days. There was this whole phase when they were younger where they told everyone they were twins but mom put a stop to that, saying that people only cared about twins who were identical.

Which may or may not be true (in terms of putting an act together, probably), but it definitely started Wei Ying’s whole superiority complex about being born first, like that was some sort of accomplishment he was responsible for.

“Crucial minutes,” Wei Ying says, before turning on the full wattage of his customer service persona. It’s both impressive and intimidating.

Wei Ying and Wen Qing play off of each other well enough that Jiang Cheng is always in danger of becoming indescribably jealous; another reason for him to hate this time between opening and the first show of the morning.

“He will accidentally stab you with a knife and not apologize!” Wen Qing calls. “Come see me instead!”

“She’ll give you the literal plague, and she doesn’t even do anything, it’s all on the rats!” Wei Ying yells.

Wen Qing does a flip just to prove that she does do something and Wei Ying does a flip back because he’s a little shit. Wen Qing points to Wen Ning.

“My brother is nicer!”

“My—well. She has me there,” Wei Ying says. “But look at how tall mine is! And the jawline! It’s very…angular…”

Wei Ying drapes himself over Jiang Cheng’s shoulders and prods at his face as the people streaming by laugh. Jiang Cheng rolls his shoulders, but allows Wei Ying to push his face into a smile. The people love that.

It goes on, Wei Ying and Wen Qing circling back to compete with each other. Wen Ning and Jiang Cheng stand together in the background, like the good little props that they are, until it’s time to head off to their stages for the final safety checks.

It’s a common enough practice for them, standing together while everyone around them shouts, that while Jiang Cheng waits for the okay to run away from the front gates, the rat who is set up on a little chair on a little stand that Wen Ning is holding, climbs off of the chair and onto Jiang Cheng’s shoulder.

Wen Qing and Wen Ning tend to own about four rats at any given time and they like to rotate which one goes to the gate in the morning. Enrichment or some shit.

(Wen Qing has a whole bit about how she ran away from med school and broke out a bunch of medical experiment rats on her way out so all of her rats are named after lab equipment. Jiang Cheng is 93% sure that this isn’t true, but Wen Qing sometimes hates answering personal questions on principle.)

Anyway.

This one, the one that climbs onto Jiang Cheng’s shoulder, is called Pipette and he knows this because Pipette is the only one to ever actually abandon Wen Ning in favor of Jiang Cheng.

The other rats just sniff at his shoulder before deciding that he’s explored territory and therefore, less interesting than all of the strangers going past. But Pipette likes to settle, close enough to Jiang Cheng’s neck that her whiskers are always in danger of hitting the wrong reflex.

Unfortunately, when it’s time to head off to their stages, Wen Ning is the one who scoops Pipette up, so Wen Qing can’t be casually impressed by how much Jiang Cheng wasn’t letting Pipette’s nails bother him (the rats are kind of cute, but their nails are sharp).

Tomorrow, perhaps.

It’s not the worst start to a day that Jiang Cheng has ever had, but it’s far from the best. He promises himself that he’ll go check on Yanli after the first show. She won’t have sympathy, or really, any time for him. But she’s nice to be around and he misses her.

Maybe she’ll have some errands he can run.

Wei Ying’s first show of the day is fine, if a little boring. It’s a carefully cultivated set of whip tricks that showcases Jiang Cheng’s talent. For the most part.

Okay.

It’s a carefully cultivated set of whip tricks that definitely showed of the inimitable Madame Yu’s talent, but Wei Ying thinks it could use some updating for Jiang Cheng.

Like.

The Madame Yu style is very impressive. But it’s also kinda sneaky. Jiang Cheng is a much more upfront, brute strength and a bit of flash, kind of style. But mom has spies everywhere and she always finds out if Jiang Cheng wanders from her choreography the slightest bit.

Most frustrating.

Maybe more so for Wei Ying than Jiang Cheng because with the show the way it is Wei Ying is both bored and underutilized while Jiang Cheng is just…himself. Whatever. Wei Ying doesn’t know.

That’s the really irritating thing. He can’t tell if Jiang Cheng is perfectly happy with the show the way it is and doesn’t want to change it because he doesn’t think he needs to, or if he knows that Wei Ying will get most of the blame.

(Like, just don’t pick up the phone and you won’t have to deal with parental disapproval for a good 80% of the year, it’s not that hard.)

Anyway. The show goes fine, in the way it typically does. Mom will not be calling to tell Jiang Cheng that she didn’t build this brand up just for him to destroy it (absolute bullshit, if she cares that much about the brand she should still be doing it and letting Jiang Cheng build his own).

Wei Ying adds some jazz hands (literally) and goads Jiang Cheng into competing as often as he feels he can get away with and that’s as much as Wei Ying can do without Jiang Cheng agreeing to actively participate.

His second show of the day is much more fun. He and Huaisang had been messing around a couple of years ago, just vibing, during the week when there was no one other than themselves to entertain, and realized that they had quite the double-act after Yanli fell out of her chair laughing.

It had been during one of her not-so-great periods with Zixuan too, so it took a lot to make her laugh.

The whole act was built around Wei Ying and Huaisang being incompetent magicians. Like, The Three Stooges level of physical comedy when they failed at what they were trying to do, but that failure would result in them pulling off a completely different trick flawlessly.

They would try to saw someone in half, but the sawdust from sawing through the box would be too much for Huaisang, who would then sneeze out a full bouquet. Wei Ying would fail to find the eight of spades someone picked from the deck, but then every time he was supposed to pull something surprising from somewhere it was a new eight of spades for the rest of the act.

They cut old tricks and added new ones as they felt like it, making it an altogether more interesting experience.

They could probably use a straight man, but they hadn’t managed to convince anyone and anyway, the didn’t want to cut the profits a third way. So instead they run a show of sheer chaos and somehow manage to give everyone else a run for their money.

Guangyao hates their brand of chaos specifically and always tried to schedule them at the same time as the heavy hitters, the jousts and the washer-women comedy act (it’s a different name and different people at every faire, but Wei Ying swears it’s the same fucking act every time), and that’s remained true even now that Guangyao isn’t in charge of scheduling.

It’s fine. They hold their own.

They end the show by competing to see who can get more tips shoved into a hat and when Wei Ying dumps his takings out onto the stage, out fall a bunch of eight of spades and a stuffed rabbit.

Wei Ying almost gets distracted from his big final wail, as Huaisang starts singing that he is the champion, but no doubt Lan Zhan just sold a super ridiculous headpiece to someone, he would never have time to bother coming to see Wei Ying’s show.

He claims not to have time even when the faire is practically empty. Coming today…that would be ridiculous.

Yanli does her best to be a positive person, but she’s not delusional. She knows that her husband doesn’t have the best relationship with her brothers. It’s all a massive misunderstanding between the three of them, but she knows the truth, so it’s fine.

Well.

Her husband doesn’t like her brothers because he thinks that they think that he’s an asshole. And he’s right. So that’s not a misunderstanding.

But the part where her brothers think that Zixuan is an asshole because they think that he doesn’t appreciate her? Misunderstanding.

Zixuan isn’t the best at communication. And he can come off as a bit of a snob when he’s busy not talking to people because he doesn’t know how. It had taken them years to get on the same page, and that was with both people involved really wanting to work it out.

So Yanli understands where it all comes from. She really does.

She is not delusional. But some part of her had thought that maybe, just maybe, (almost) a year into her marriage, her husband and brothers would have settled down just a Bit.

She’d underestimated the resentment formed when Yanli started working different faires than them.

The three of them are maybe a little too co-dependent. But that’s just what happens when everyone you know picks up and moves every few weeks. The people that live with you are the only ones you can trust to keep being there, so they become your entire world.

At least, that’s how it happened with them. Yanli isn’t sure how it has affected other children.

Yanli wishes there was more data about it, the psychological effects of raising children on the move. But society has never cared much about documenting people who “aren’t a part of the community”, as if you have to be completely stationary to be a community.

She and Zixuan haven’t decided what they’ll want to do when the time comes, but it’s been an ongoing discussion, since before they got married.

Before they got engaged.

It’s the reason they broke up that one time. They had a pregnancy scare and discovered that they had wildly different ideas about parenting and raising a child.

Zixuan doesn’t want to leave the faire, there’s only so many places you can joust for a living, after all. He grew up on the outskirts of the faire because his parents own the faire grounds here, but also had all the benefits of living in a house and going to school. He thinks those were overrated.

But Yanli isn’t sure that her childhood is one that they should be trying to repeat either.

Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng don’t know that.

They’re not going to know anything until she and Zixuan have made a decision because her brothers are so damn Loud about Everything.

“I’m just saying,” Jiang Cheng says. “He’s too high and mighty on his fucking horse to bother saying hello to his co-worker and brother-in-law?”

“None of the knights interact with the entertainers,” Yanli says. For the thousandth time.

“MianMian does,” Wei Ying says.

Yanli sighs. She can handle each brother on their own, she can even handle them together most of the time. But in the middle of an extremely busy day, when her brothers are stuck on causing trouble? She does not have the energy for this.

And to think, she’d been pleased when Jiang Cheng had ducked his head in to ask if she wanted him to get her anything. Pleased when she’d seen Wei Ying swaggering over. She’d missed them.

“Well, she’s not supposed to during the day,” Yanli says. “The knights are only supposed to interact with the actors and patrons as outlined in the manual.”

“Psh, manual,” Wei Ying says. “Amateurs.”

“It’s part of the contract,” Yanli says.

“We’re related,” Jiang Cheng says.

“Why should he say hi to you when he doesn’t say anything to me?”

Yanli knows immediately that she’s made a mistake. He brothers are both ridiculously emotive, a side effect of being on stages and acting for the back row their entire lives. But at this statement, both of their faces smooth out. Just completely shut down all emotion.

“The fuck?” Wei Ying says.

“He doesn’t acknowledge you?” says Jiang Cheng.

“That’s not—we don’t cross paths,” Yanli says. “We are on separate tracks. Because we work separately. Because this is a job. You trying to say hi because you’re related is like jumping up on stage and interrupting a show to say hi. You guys, you know this.”

Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying exchange glances in a way that makes Yanli distinctly uncomfortable.

“You will not do anything to my husband, you will not do anything that could affect his job in any way,” Yanli says.

“I will tie you up and leave you out back for the rest of the day, just see if I won’t,” she adds, when it takes them too long to agree.

There’s some more ominous eye contact between the two, but they do eventually nod at her. Yanli sees them both out of her booth, sells some paper flower crowns, and ducks behind the counter to check her phone.

Technically, since she’s a vender, and therefore needs her phone in order to process credit cards, she’s allowed to just have her phone on her. She isn’t breaking any rules. It still feels like she should hide it out of solidarity.

She has no fewer than seven texts waiting from Zixuan. He leaves his phone in the stables because he can’t figure out a safe way to carry it around, his armor makes getting at what pockets he does have difficult, but he texts her whenever he goes back.

Before and after every joust, sometimes just because.

Funny little stories about toddlers who want to take on a knight (he always lets them win), questions about their plans for later. Heart emojis for every time he’s seen her during the day without being able to come over.

Each heart is exchangeable for a kiss at the end of the day.

He’s such a nerd.

She sends some hearts back. Not because she’s seen him, just because she’s thought about him. She thinks it counts.

When Lan Zhan gets back to their booth he puts his head down and takes on all of the hair arranging responsibilities in penance, even though it’s at that point in the day where everyone is at least a little bit sweaty and arranging their hair is getting increasingly unpleasant.

In all fairness, Xichen had sent him on a mission. Somehow they had messed up the back-stock they have stored under the counters in their booth and were running dangerously low on the gold plated phoenix hair sticks.

Not that anyone walking in would know that they’re missing something, but Xichen is a perfectionist, and they do charge slightly more for the gold plated ones even though the cost difference in production is negligible.

So Lan Zhan had been sent on a perfectly legitimate mission back to the campsite to look for the missing box, and then had taken an entirely illegitimate detour around to see Wei Ying’s show. To see what he meant by “slightly more fire”.

(Too much fire, and too close to Wei Ying’s bare hands, for the record.)

He doesn’t think he stays for more than five minutes (his internal clock is Excellent, thank you) but by the time he gets back to the booth Xichen is looking thoroughly overwhelmed and it’s all Lan Zhan’s fault for taking his time coming back.

And Xichen knows, if his cheery “How’s the wide world out there?” when Lan Zhan ducks inside is anything to go by.

Lan Zhan starts twisting hair and tilting mirrors rather than respond, and Xichen steps outside, where they flower crown displays are set up, where his soft smiles and laughter are sure to entice customers in.

It isn’t long before everything is back under control and there’s nothing to protect Lan Zhan from his brother sidling closer and interrogating him about his brief foray into freedom.

“Would you like to go on a walk?” Lan Zhan says, pointedly, after Xichen’s fifth question (the answer to all of Xichen’s questions is Wei Ying and they both know it, there’s not point going through the whole process).

It takes another hour, but the first day is winding down. People aren’t buying for themselves to wear around the faire any longer, they’re circling back for gifts on their way out or skipping the vender booths altogether.

Xichen leaves early, the way he normally does. Lan Zhan does his best not to mentally speculate about where he’s going because those who live in glass houses etc.

(He’s going to Mingjue’s forge. He is Always going to Mingjue’s forge.)

Wei Ying pops his head in minutes after Xichen leaves. Depending on which direction Wei Ying came from it’s possible that Xichen saw him and that this will be seized upon as an Opportunity for Teasing at dinner.

At some point when Xichen was in cosmetology school, he watched some sitcom that taught him that teasing is a normal and encouraged way to communicate with your siblings. Lan Zhan is not a fan.

However.

Wei Ying.

Worth it.

He comes in looking sweaty and tired and exhilarated, the way he does after a day that has gone particularly well. Wei Ying feeds off of interaction with people with the same exact intensity that Lan Zhan feeds off of solitude.

Wei Ying’s career decisions make much more sense than Lan Zhan’s.

“It stayed!” Wei Ying says, pointing at his hair. Like it isn’t an insult to insinuate that his hair would fall. “I brought this as a thank you!”

He hands over a sweating plastic cup that he definitely isn’t supposed to have while strolling around the faire in costume.

Lan Zhan looks into the cup warily. For whatever reason the faire doesn’t like putting lids on drinks. Lan Zhan suspects the official party line is being more eco friendly, while spending less money. But the result is bees. Bees everywhere. No drink is safe.

This one appears to be.

“It’s green!” Wei Ying says. “So it has to be healthy!”

Everything he’s saying is in exclamation points so Lan Zhan pushes him into the client chair again. Wei Ying is at his most excitable when he is also at his most exhausted.

Lan Zhan takes a sip. Iced tea. Indeed green. Unsweetened even.

Wei Ying lolls in the chair as he chats about his day and watches Lan Zhan drink his tea. He refuses to sit properly and always protests that it’s his duty as a card-carrying bisexual to do so whenever Lan Zhan questions the state of his spine.

Lan Zhan sits in the other seat, correctly. He finds talking with people in general to be exhausting, but Wei Ying’s monologues about his day are calming, practically meditative. Nothing is required of Lan Zhan but his presence and maybe a well placed “Mn” if Wei Ying is being particularly emphatic about something.

“And then, she said that he just ignores her all day like some kind of monster. So now we have to murder Zixuan. She made us promise not to, but we crossed our fingers and we’re waiting for the right moment. Wanna help?” Wei Ying leans over the armrest and bats his eyelashes.

“Murder is frowned upon,” Lan Zhan says.

“But—wait. Only frowned upon?” Wei Ying says, leaning farther over the armrest. It’s not a very stable chair, so Lan Zhan reaches out to push Wei Ying back down. Wei Ying just leans harder, pushing with his whole chest against Lan Zhan’s hand.

“Meat is forbidden, and god save me if I fucking swear, but murder? Murder is “frowned upon”?”

Air quotes and all.

This is going better than anticipated. Lan Zhan feels like he’s been waiting ages for Wei Ying to ask him to help with something clearly illegal so he can say it’s just frowned upon.

Imaginary self-high-five.

“Self-defense,” Lan Zhan says, sipping at his tea and deliberately not following Wei Ying when Wei Ying settles back into his chair and laughs.

“So if I find a way to make Zixuan attack me and then I murder him in self-defense? You’ll help?”

“You will not be able to provoke him,” Lan Zhan says. “Yanli wouldn’t like it.”

Wei Ying throws himself against the back of the chair and pouts. Lan Zhan makes a note to suggest to Xichen that they look into getting some new ones. These aren’t going to be up to Wei Ying’s treatment much longer.

“Yanli doesn’t like being ignored either,” Wei Ying says.

“Mn,” Lan Zhan says. And Wei Ying launches off onto another topic.

Sunday morning comes too quickly, like it always does. But that’s okay since tomorrow is Monday and Monday means sleeping in (and brunch).

There are all the side-hustles, of course. And the prep work. Everything that goes into developing an act and maintaining it. But Wei Ying has always been careful to choose things that let him sleep in the mornings. He only needs to get up on time twice a week.

He skews nocturnal, he can’t help it.

Saturday mornings he normally manages on his own, but Sundays are a lost cause, so Jiang Cheng comes and wakes him up. And by wakes him up, Wei Ying means Jiang Cheng physically drags Wei Ying out of his tent and leaves him wailing on the ground.

“How could you be so cruel to your big brother!: Wei Ying says to Jiang Cheng’s retreating back.

He’s still wearing his pajamas and a pair of flip flops because his feet are too precious to touch dirt while accosting Wei Ying. Meanwhile, dumping Wei Ying and his blankets into the dirt is fine.

“You literally asked me to,” Jiang Cheng yells back, before stomping into the RV to start breakfast.

“You could at least drop me on the fucking tarp,” Wei Ying says.

His tent is mere inches away from the outside table they have set up and again, Jiang Cheng is fucking precious about touching dirt, so he has a tidy little tarp that stretches from the RV door over to the picnic table and under.

There’s some more shouting, presumably telling Wei Ying that if he cares about how he gets woken up he should do it himself already, but Wei Ying doesn’t really pay attention. It’s all part of a long established routine between the two of them, he can do it on autopilot.

One time he actually had woken up by himself and gotten himself up on a Sunday and then the whole day felt off-kilter. He kept messing up routines and then almost impaled himself when he tripped over a perfectly well marked tent stake.

He’s waited for Jiang Cheng to wake him up every Sunday morning that they’re working since.

“Hey,” Wen Ning says, as he walks past, fresh back from the shower block down the way. It’s a pretty decent campsite, so everyone with an RV has all the right hookups, but there are also permanent facilities available for everyone without.

Wei Ying waves up at Wen Ning, like he totally meant to be in the dirt. Like it isn’t almost laundry day and he totally has enough spare clean clothes to waste some, lolling around on the ground.

Wen Qing walks by not long after, looking like she’s trying not to laugh, which is so not the message Wei Ying wanted to be sending. According to the banging going on inside the RV, breakfast must be about ready by now anyway, so he scrambles to his feet.

“Morning,” Xichen says, as he and Lan Zhan walk past. Wei Ying has No Idea where they came from, but they always get up absurdly early so they have time to go conquer the world before the gates open, so it could have been anywhere.

They’re already in their robes, so it must be later than Wei Ying thought. Typical. Even with help, Wei Ying can’t get up on time.

It’s just a flicker, but Wei Ying Sees the moment when Lan Zhan notices all of his bedding in the dirt and the matching dust on his pajamas.

“Ah ha ha, overslept,” Wei Ying says, performing an over the top shrug.

“He should be more careful,” Lan Zhan says.

“Or I should get up on time,” Wei Ying says.

As much as Wei Ying enjoys Lan Zhan coming to his defense, Lan Zhan finds everything Jiang Cheng does to be the worst way to do the thing and is extremely judge-y about it. It’s like as soon as Lan Zhan started giving Wei Ying a pass on his miscreant behavior, he started taking it out on Jiang Cheng.

Hilarious, but also not conducive to the almost communal living situation that is the campgrounds. It’s best not to give Lan Zhan reasons to judge Jiang Cheng even more first thing in the morning.

(Well, maybe not Lan Zhan’s first thing in the morning, but definitely Jiang Cheng’s.)

Only when Wei Ying is bored and looking for entertainment. Not when he has to get ready for work.

Lan Zhan looks like he wants to say more, but the RV door bangs open and Jiang Cheng comes out brandishing full plates. Eggs and sausage and toast. Fruit and yogurt and granola in small bowls. Your all American breakfast.

Lan Zhan gives Jiang Cheng a once over and sweeps away, Xichen following with a smiling wave.

Jiang Cheng drops the plates on the table and goes back inside for coffee and juice. It’s excessive, but it’s how they do. Mom was always convinced that as long as you got a really good breakfast it didn’t matter if you ended up working all day without a break for lunch and ended the day too tired for dinner.

There isn’t much by way of oversight, at the faire. The way the insurance works, each contractor is responsible for themselves, and entertainers are paid a flat rate if they’re paid at all, so the faire doesn’t concern itself with the number of hours worked.

It was either child abuse or sad, but she always treated herself the same way, so Wei Ying is inclined to think that it was mostly sad.

Anyway.

They totally take breaks and eat other meals now, but they can’t quite kick the habit of eating the most extreme breakfasts in the entire camp (with the exception of whoever Yanli is feeding, Yanli’s breakfasts are a whole other level).

“Yanli would be sad if we actually killed him,” Jiang Cheng says, when Wei Ying brings up Zixuan.

“Good point, good point,” Wei Ying says. “Lan Zhan also says that murder is “frowned upon” so…”

Jiang Cheng scoffs.

“You know, you could just talk to him,” MianMian says, straddling the bench Wei Ying is sitting on and stealing a piece of his toast.

Wei Ying tries not to mind that he’d just gotten it perfectly buttered since it’s MianMian, but it’s hard. He might not be a growing boy anymore, but he can still eat like one and he’s not going to stop until he has to.

“To who? About what?” Wei Ying says, opening his eyes as wide as they’ll go.

“Yanli said you were in a snit about something Zixuan did or didn’t do,” MianMian says. “Don’t you think it would make more sense to talk to him, than to punish him without telling him why?”

“Don’t you ever just want to kick him?” Wei Ying says.

“No,” MianMian laughs. “Don’t you ever want to do something the easy way instead of in a convoluted plot?”

“But he’s so kickable.”

“Yanli wanted to remind you not to do anything that will harm Zixuan or endanger his terms of employment, because both of those things will hurt her.”

“Since when did you become Yanli’s messenger,” Jiang Cheng mumbles at his plate.

Seriously. They’ve known MianMian for years, neither of them is interested, and he’s still incapable of speaking like an adult around her. Wei Ying really needs to pull together some kind of intervention, or lessons, or something.

“Since she started feeding me,” MianMian says, stealing some sausage from Jiang Cheng’s plate. She’s very into keeping things fair.

“No one is capable of eating anything else for hours after Yanli has fed them,” Jiang Cheng says to the table.

“Speak for yourself. I’m not limited by your failings,” she says, as she gets up to leave. MianMian is the coolest.

Wei Ying takes out his phone for a leisurely scroll through social media and starts to shovel his food in. Somehow it is always, always, always later than he thought on Sundays. Sunday time works differently than other time, he swears.

Wei Ying and Jiang Cheng don’t talk for the rest of the meal because they’re too busy speed eating and then racing to get dressed. There isn’t even time to go beg a hairstyle from Lan Zhan. Wei Ying heads straight for the gate, tying his hair back himself as he goes.

Wen Qing sends A-Ning on ahead to drop most of the rats off at the enclosure behind their stage and to get a good spot at the gates. He goes with a knowing look, but doesn’t say anything.

A-Ning prefers to wait to say something until the most dramatic moment possible (it doesn’t work on Wen Qing so he doesn’t say, he just looks Put Upon).

Whatever.

Watching Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying run for the gates every Sunday morning is one of the joys of her life and she’s been deprived of it for weeks. It doesn’t matter what faire they’re at, or what week it is, they’re always in a state on Sundays.

Ridiculous.

She doesn’t even think that Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying realize that they have a Sunday schedule. They both hit the same marks at the same time every week, but neither of them seem to notice. They’re always too panicked for the time to register.

He’d deny it, but the problem actually starts with Jiang Cheng. He waits too long to start breakfast on Sunday, which means he waits too long to wake up Wei Ying.

They should be up and eating by the time she’s going to the shower block to get ready, but they never start eating until she’s back at the camper. She started keeping track this year. Wei Ying is always jumping up from the ground when she passes by.

Unfortunately, this means that Jiang Cheng is already back inside, but whatever. It’s still funny.

And she still gets to watch them run off towards the gates like they’re being chased because being late is just a feeling they have now. If they bothered to actually look at a clock, or at the phones she knows they carry even though they’re strictly forbidden (everyone carries their phones) they would realize that they have a minute.

She’s never late, and she always strolls behind them.

But again, ridiculous. Not paying attention to the things that they should be paying attention to.

She runs up between the two of them, breaking through and spinning around so she can watch their faces when she asks why they’re acting like they’re late.

Wei Ying takes it in stride, like he takes everything. Jiang Cheng flinches and flushes, as anticipated. He’s in a constant state of fight or flight, that one. Sounds exhausting when you think about how Wei Ying is always right there, just a giant ball of noise and antagonism.

Wen Qing hesitates a step so the brothers can catch up, falling in on either side of her (another tradition, not that either of these two would realize or admit it) and she pats Jiang Cheng on the shoulder.

It’s meant to be reassuring. Or apologetic. Or maybe she was just looking for an excuse to touch him (she was definitely just looking for an excuse to touch him). Either way, he flinches again.

Sometimes she catches him watching her, or he shows up with her favorite drink, and she’s sure that he likes her. But then sometimes when she leans in, he leans back, or she’ll pat him on the shoulder, and he’ll look at her like she just tried to stab him.

They’ve been doing this dance for the last two years and she still doesn’t understand the steps.

She removes her hand from Jiang Cheng’s shoulder and pats Wei Ying on the shoulder too, so Jiang Cheng doesn’t feel singled out.

Sunday is worryingly Wei Ying free. With the sheer volume of customers you’d think that Lan Zhan wouldn’t have time to notice, but he does.

He’d prepared his best aggrieved expression just in case Wei Ying came to beg a hairstyle, but of course, he didn’t have time this morning. Lan Zhan knows that. Wei Ying never has time on a Sunday, not if he needs to be at the gates for opening.

Plus, Lan Zhan had seen Wei Ying, still in his pajamas and un-breakfasted, when it was long past the time that he should have moved on from both. But still. He’d hoped.

Foolish.

Hopefully Wei Ying manages to not catch on fire. And that is the beginning and end of Lan Zhan’s hopes for him.

Lan Zhan twists client hair perhaps a little too tightly all day, but the hairstyles hold and it’s sunny enough out that everyone will blame their headaches on dehydration. Probably.

Xichen does his best to take as many of the customers getting a hairstyle as possible.

Lan Zhan gives in and plants himself at the counter (a bookshelf turned to face away from the shop at large so that no one notices when they abandon the iPad or cash box on the shelves).

“Uncle Qiren wants us to visit, during the week,” Xichen says, when they have a slow moment, scrolling through his phone. Rule breaker.

Uncle Qiren lives and works in New York City, which is less than two hours by train from the closest town. Coming to this faire always feels a little bit like coming home. New York has a very specific humidity.

“Uncle Qiren could visit us,” Lan Zhan suggests, even though he knows it will never happen.

Uncle Qiren has never had any qualms about voicing his disapproval for their joint career. He doesn’t really understand why anyone would choose a path other than academia.

Xichen was already a lost cause, having gone to cosmetology school and gotten his hairdressing license before he started making accessories, but Lan Zhan’s later defection was seen as a betrayal of the highest order.

“He could,” Xichen agrees, typing away. Obviously also agreeing with Uncle Qiren that his nephews can put in the legwork to go visit him. Even though there are errands to run and replacement stock to make and whatever a spa day with Wei Ying entails.

Visiting Uncle Qiren always ends in them spending the night and most of the next day at the apartment he raised them in. Lan Zhan has heard tell of people who enjoy returning to their childhood homes. He mostly feels itchy, like he’s missing out on something.

“We aren’t fully settled in yet,” Lan Zhan says.

“A-Zhan—“

“If we visit now he’ll give us more tofu and there won’t be anywhere to put it.”

Lan Zhan knows that he’s grasping at increasingly petty arguments, but the logistics of what food they can keep refrigerated and managing to eat things before they go bad are both things that keep him up at night.

Keeping organized in such a small space, that needs to be collapsed and moved and rebuilt elsewhere on a regular basis, is exhausting. Especially when the person you live with just assumes that everything will magically work out.

Xichen laughs because he finds the small details amusing rather than something to develop anxiety over.

Xichen got all the good genes. Sometimes Lan Zhan wants to resent him for it (like right now), but Xichen is so overwhelmingly Good that Lan Zhan just ends up spiraling into self-hatred instead. Who resents their brother for being a functional person?

“Didn’t Guangyao invite you to do something this week?”

“There are multiple days in the week.”

“Mingjue?”

“We haven’t seen Uncle Qiren since New Years. We’re his only family.”

Ugh. Sanctimonious Xichen. See also: the-hardest-to-convince-or-otherwise-manipulate Xichen.

All of Wei Ying’s shows go great, and he’s booked solidly enough that there’s not much time to get bored. It’s all half hour show, book it across the grounds to the other stage for safety checks, half hour show, book it back. Rinse and repeat.

Jiang Cheng throws a sandwich at him to eat while running at once point, he screams and waves as he passes Yanli’s spot and he’s pretty sure she’s the one who waves back.

He spends what free time he does have between shows checking on Zixuan, confirming that he is indeed just as boring as he was the first time Jiang Cheng and Wei Ying decided to follow him, back when he first started dating Yanli.

For the record, he is. Just as boring. He walks around being all smarmy and the patrons eat it up and then he goes and hides in the stables for a while. Does a joust. Is extra smarmy at said joust. Hides in the stables. Ugh.

Everything would be so much better if Yanli had just never gotten married. Wei Ying doesn’t get it. They were all perfectly happy and then Yanli decided to go change everything and a year later everything is still unbalanced and he’s spending his precious free time tailing Zixuan instead of bothering Lan Zhan.

Travesty.

“Lan Zhaaaaaan!”

Lan Zhan actually feels his shoulders lower (they’d been creeping up near his ears ever since Xichen started talking about visiting Uncle Qiren) when he hears Wei Ying yelling his way up the path (obviously excited about something, not injured or being chased).

He continues cleaning up the hairstyling station without turning around. If they’re face-to-face Wei Ying waves, but if he’s turned away, Wei Ying will grab Lan Zhan’s shoulders like he’s going to try and leapfrog over him.

“Opening weekend party! Opening weekend party!” Wei Ying chants as he comes into the shop, and does indeed crash into Lan Zhan from behind, grabbing at his shoulders and shaking out the last bits of tension.

“How do you know there’s a party?” Lan Zhan says.

“There’s always a party!” Wei Ying says, dropping himself into one of the chairs before Lan Zhan can push him. He tilts his head back and smiles up at Lan Zhan.

(There is always a party. Ren faires are full of people who are taking a break from their normal lives and just want to drink all night and see how many other people they can hook up with.)

Wei Ying and Xichen (and probably everyone else) treat the actors and other local hires like they’re interchangeable from faire to faire. Or maybe like they share a hive mind. The ones there always have an opening weekend party on Sunday, so the ones here must as well.

The queen likes to make jokes but takes herself a little too seriously, Shakespeare and Robin Hood are both players who never fully sober up for the weekend, the food workers who yell “Huzzah for the tipper” the loudest will also be the ones up for taking part in an impromptu karaoke session.

Lan Zhan has been around long enough to know what Xichen and Wei Ying think the rules are. How they’re always right is what’s beyond him.

“I don’t like parties,” Lan Zhan says, because it would probably be true if he had ever gone to one. He stopped getting invited to parties around the age when moms stopped inviting the entire class. He never saw the point in getting himself back on the guest list.

If other people didn’t like him, he would dislike other people more.

“That’s because you’ve never been to a party with me,” Wei Ying says, tilting his head back and smiling what he thinks of as his most winsome smile.

Winsome. The actual word Wei Ying had used to describe his own smile one time, shortly after they first met.

It fits.

Lan Zhan ghosts past Wei Ying, tugging at his braid for a moment to check the ends and make sure Wei Ying isn’t forgetting to mention having caught fire at any point during the day. They look un-singed, if painfully dry.

He gives a small tsk and Wei Ying laughs because he uses the wrong shampoo and conditioner on purpose.

“Lan Zhan, come out with me. I’m getting too old to party with the kids on my own.”

“You do realize that the correct response to being too old to party with a select group is to not party with said group, not bring along someone else who is also too old to party?”

“I do not,” Wei Ying says. “You’ll bring up the median age. And if we walk up together we can just be all “Oh, two adults going for a stroll. What is up, youths?” about it. And then we can bounce if it’s boring because we were clearly already doing something else.”

Xichen laughs on his way out the door, leaving Lan Zhan to clean up alone, as per usual. It’s fair because Xichen normally comes in early and Lan Zhan normally has to take a break at least once a day. Not to mention all the actual crafting part of the hand-crafted thing.

“I’m sure Xichen would go,” Lan Zhan says, slightly miffed at the way Wei Ying had brightened and turned towards Xichen’s laughter. If Wei Ying needs laughter, he shouldn’t be trying to spend his time with Lan Zhan.

“Then invite him too,” Wei Ying says, spinning around so he can track Lan Zhan’s movements as he pulls in the flower crown displays and closes shutters.

“Mn.”

“Oh, come on. You know you’re my favorite Lan,” Wei Ying says.

Lan Zhan doesn’t take that as a very high compliment, seeing as Wei Ying only knows the two of them. It is the only time he wins at something over Xichen though. Everyone always prefers Xichen. Lan Zhan prefers Xichen.

“We haven’t gotten to hang out at all since we got here,” Wei Ying whines. Like Lan Zhan doesn’t know that. They’d all gotten here late, with barely any time to set up. Tactical errors in their schedule for the season.

“Mn.”

Wei Ying gasps.

“Do you mean it?”

Lan Zhan does, much as he’ll regret it as it’s happening and after.

“Mn.”