Chapter Text
“Immortality is a tricky thing, Chengling. It’s not something every fae can gift, nor is it something that is simply given. Immortality must be earned.”
Time moved differently, where Wen Kexing came from. He could disappear into pockets of it and let years pass by in the real world. Other times, he could spend a week in his house and step out into Zhou Zishu’s with only five minutes having passed. It all depended on where he was and who-- or what-- ruled the domain. It was actually quite odd, when he visited Zhou Zishu, to be in a place where time moved at one steady pace for all of eternity.
It did mean that if he found the right pocket, he could spend hours researching, and still return to his lover in a timely manner.
“The queen of the goblins has a library,” he told Zhou Zishu the next time they were together. “Beyond her labyrinth, in her castle. It is the most extensive library known among my kind. The books held there are spoken of only in legend.”
“Then how do you know they’re truly there?” Zhou Zishu asked pointedly.
“All legends hold some truth to them,” Wen Kexing told him, with a smile so wide it hurt. “This is our path, Zhou Zishu. All we need to do is solve the labyrinth. How hard can it be?”
"For you?" Zhou Zishu raised an eyebrow, "or for me?"
"Us both," Wen Kexing touched the tip of his nose with a finger. "Together, A-Xu, always."
"Are all of you so clingy?"
"Why, are you eyeing up another immortal creature?" Wen Kexing grinned, in a way that showed just how sharp his teeth were when he used them properly. "Hell hath no fury."
"And I have no desire to attract any more attention," Zhou Zishu smiled. "You're distracting enough as it is. Can barely get any work done."
"I'm not that bad."
Zhou Zishu cast his eyes around his bedroom, once pristine and now looking as though a particularly vengeful hurricane had passed through it. Zhou Zishu had a man's hungers, but Wen Kexing's were comparatively unquenchable. With a hum, he lay back down, one hand drawing up and down Wen Kexing's back in meditative patterns.
"It can't be as simple as walking in," he considered, "otherwise more would have accessed the library by now. Nothing is ever free."
"Hence the labyrinth."
"No, there has to be something else," Zhou Zishu chewed his lip. He'd always been aware of the fae, it was hard not to be, but he'd never been particularly invested in their lore or history. Not until this man of unearthly beauty had fallen into his lap and stolen his heart.
No, that wasn't fair.
He hadn't stolen it, per se. Traded it. Zhou Zishu knew he held Wen Kexing's just as surely.
"There's always a catch."
"So morbid, A-Xu," Wen Kexing whined, nuzzling him. "Don't you trust me?"
"You I trust," Zhou Zishu reminded him. "I have a healthy mistrust of everyone else."
“We don’t need to trust anyone else,” Wen Kexing promised him. “We’ll do it on our own. The two of us against the world. Or, against a giant maze.”
Zhou Zishu sighed. “If I decline, you’re going to do it on your own, aren’t you?”
Wen Kexing took his hand, pulling it up to his lips and brushing a kiss across the knuckles. “I would walk far more than a labyrinth to keep you by my side,” he said, with an earnestness that shivered down Zhou Zishu’s spine.
For a moment, it seemed they were going to lose themselves to another endeavor entirely, but at the last minute Zhou Zishu diverted his kiss to Wen Kexing’s cheek.
“Alright,” he said. “Whatever you want.”
Wen Kexing grinned, bright-eyed and knowing. “Whatever I want?”
“Oh, is that the game you want to play tonight?”
They did not discuss the labyrinth for several hours more.
"Was it hard to find?"
"What was?"
"The labyrinth?"
Zhou Zishu glanced at his husband and Wen Kexing offered a lackadaisical shrug.
"Not if you know where to look."
Chengling pouted. "That's not an answer though,"
Zhou Zishu snorted. "Your father is allergic to straight answers."
"I try to avoid straight anything, if I can help it."
"The labyrinth?" Chengling interrupted, looking between his parents. "How'd you find it?"
Straight answers, or the most twisted versions of them aside, they found the labyrinth because Wen Kexing knew where to look for it.
He’d taken Zhou Zishu through other worlds before, that wasn’t forbidden-- though it was frowned upon-- and this journey had felt just as destabilizing and just as discombobulating as the others had. Zhou Zishu felt damn near hung over when his feet scraped up against the gravel path.
Wen Kexing caught his arm to steady him, but didn’t comment on his weak mortal constitution or whatever else he usually said. For that, at least Zhou Zishu was grateful.
Once he got his bearings, he managed to lose his breath.
The wall they stood before was unfathomably tall; built of mismatched rocks that somehow fit together, covered in mildew and moss. Despite knowing better, Zhou Zishu couldn’t resist reaching out to touch it.
Solid.
Solid yet somehow smooth; they wouldn’t be able to just climb the thing and jump over.
Well, he hadn’t expected they’d be able to, anyway.
“Now what?” he asked after a while. Wen Kexing hummed before holding his arms out before himself, a closed fist pressed to an open palm, and ducked his head in a shallow bow.
“Goblin Queen, Goblin Queen, wherever you may be, we seek an audience.”
“That doesn’t seem too polite,” Chengling pointed out, shifting about in his pile of pillows.
“It was fine,” Wen Kexing shrugged.
“It wasn’t fine,” Zhou Zishu direly reminded him.
The woman appeared in a flurry of wind, scattering the dry leaves at their feet. She was beautiful, dressed all in red with a shock of white hair down her back. She was a vibrant pop of color against the sepia background, bright and almost painful to look at.
“Why have you come here, Wen Kexing?” She asked, eyes narrowed. Zhou Zishu was acutely aware of his status as an outsider, neither of them sparing him a glance as they stared each other down.
“I come seeking your favor,” Wen Kexing said, dropping into a slightly deeper bow, hair falling around his shoulders.
“We,” Zhou Zishu corrected. The Goblin Queen’s eyes flickered towards him, piercing. Zhou Zishu felt breathless under her gaze. Pinned like a butterfly to a board.
Beside him, Wen Kexing’s hand twitched, as if itching to reach out and pull Zhou Zishu closer, shield him.
“You, I don’t know,” She said, her voice disarmingly soft. “What is your name?”
This, Zhou Zishu knew better than to answer. “Zhou Xu, your majesty,” he said, with a deep bow of his own. When he came back up, she was smiling.
“Very smart, your mortal,” She told Wen Kexing. “It is safe to give your name within my labyrinth,” she assured him, “but it is better for you if none of my rank know it.”
"We've come seeking a favor," Wen Kexing continued after an appropriately long pause for gravitas. "Your library."
"What of it?"
"They say you have a book that gifts immortality to mortals," Zhou Zishu said. The queen considered the two of them before laughing softly. The sound felt like a blanket, warm, almost stiflingly so; danger wrapped in kindness.
"Do they?" She brought a hand to her face and tapped elegant fingers against her lips. "I suppose there might be some truth to those rumors. But it's a book no mortal can read, what use would it be to you?"
"Us," Wen Kexing gently corrected. "We… have use for it."
The queen kept her eyes on Zhou Zishu for a long time before he finally had to look away first. It felt like she was turning him inside out.
"It isn't a book I let leave the library," she said some time later, eyes moving between the boy and the fae. "One may read it only within its walls."
"May we?" Zhou Zishu asked. She blinked.
"Should you solve my labyrinth, I see no reason why not."
"Thank you, your majesty," Wen Kexing grinned, ducking into another bow, "we'll not take your kindness for granted--"
"You," she interrupted, pointing an elegant finger at Wen Kexing, "you may not enter the labyrinth. It isn't for the likes of us. He will go alone."
"No." Wen Kexing narrowed his eyes. The queen just shrugged.
"Suit yourself."
"Lao Wen," Zhou Zishu set a hand to his shoulder. "Let's think about this."
“Absolutely not,” Wen Kexing said, with a hint of venom in his voice. For a moment, Zhou Zishu worried they’d offended the queen, but her expression was placid as she watched them. Almost as if she’d expected exactly this outcome.
“Do you know how many mortals don’t return from the labyrinth?” Wen Kexing asked him. “How many become subjects, how many merely keel over and die?”
Zhou Zishu paused. He did not, in fact, know the answer to that question, but he suspected he did not want to.
But he wanted forever with Wen Kexing. He did not want to stop and restart their romance every few decades. “If I die,” he said, voice wavering only slightly, “you can just find me in the next life.”
Wen Kexing shot him a look that was absolutely withering. “Or,” he said, “We could live out your next few decades together, and I would not have to seek you again so soon after finding you.”
“Lao Wen,” Zhao Zishu said softly. “The risk is worth it, for me.”
"You--." Wen Kexing bit his tongue and forced himself to breathe as evenly as his temper allowed. Zhou Zishu slid his hand from Wen Kexing's shoulder to slot their fingers together, squeezing right until Wen Kexing squeezed back.
"How many make it?" He asked the queen. She gave him a curious look.
"Those that want it enough, always do."
"That's bullshit." Wen Kexing hissed. She just raised an eyebrow.
"The labyrinth does not throw obstacles at those running it that they cannot handle. No single journey is the same. They face within the labyrinth what they need to overcome. Nothing more or less than that."
"Useless platitudes and reassurances that have no grounding," Wen Kexing replied. He sounded more desperate now than angry. "A-Xu, we'll find another way."
"Tell me," the queen interrupted him, stepping closer and addressing Zhou Zishu. "Immortality. Do you want it?"
"Of course?"
"Do you truly?" Her smile was knowing, almost sad. Zhou Zishu swallowed before nodding his head again.
"I want to spend eternity with him."
"Why?"
"Because he is my soulmate," Zhou Zishu replied plainly. "And it's torture for him to see me die."
"You may die in your attempts," she warned. Zhou Zishu drew his thumb over Wen Kexing's knuckles, almost to reassure himself more than his partner.
"Or I will make it," he countered. "I want it enough. For him, I'd cross universes."
"A-Xu."
"How curious," the queen looked between the two of them before biting her lower lip and tilting her head back proudly. "You intrigue me. I will allow you to run the labyrinth, as many times as you need, until you get to the center." She nodded to Zhou Zishu. "And I shall allow you to wait for him within my halls," she glanced to Wen Kexing. "For as long as it takes. If he solves it, you will get your eternity."
She held out her hand. Zhou Zishu hesitated in taking it.
"At what cost?" He asked carefully. The queen's smile looked venomous for a moment.
"Clever mortal," she praised. Beside Zhou Zishu, Wen Kexing tensed like an angry cat. "You will not see each other until you solve it."
"No." Wen Kexing breathed.
"But… I will grant you your memories, for every reincarnation, to hold onto as long as you are able. You will always know the reason you are here."
“No,” Wen Kexing said again, firmer now. He reached for Zhou Zishu, clutching desperately to his hand. “A-Xu, we’ll find another way. Or I’ll keep finding you. Two decades isn’t long to wait compared to the time we get after.”
“She’s offering an infinite amount of chances,” Zhou Zishu countered. “Sooner or later, I’ll solve it.”
“Or perhaps you won’t,” Wen Kexing said, gripping Zhou Zishu’s hands so tightly it hurt. “Perhaps the labyrinth will turn on you, and you will die far out of my reach. Over and over again. The labyrinth has claimed lives before.”
“So little faith in me, Lao Wen.”
Wen Kexing flinched. “No,” he hastened to say. “No, A-Xu, never in you. In others. In fate. But never you.”
“Then trust me now.” Zhou Zishu pulled Wen Kexing’s hand up to his lips, brushing a kiss across the knuckles.
Wen Kexing looked shattered. Zhou Zishu had never seen such a vulnerable, fragile look on his face before. He'd never seen any of the fae look genuinely desperate. Panicked.
"If I'd had any doubts of his devotion before, that look sealed it." Zhou Zishu said, drawing a hand through his hair. Next to him, Wen Kexing rested his head on his shoulder.
Chengling made a face.
"Yeah, yeah, okay, get to the adventure."
"Tch, impatient boy," Wen Kexing reached out to tweak his nose gently. "Just wait til you fall in love, little brat."
"Yeah, I'm not falling into that trap."
Zhou Zishu snorted. "Yeah, we didn't think we would either, kid."
Zhou Zishu tucked a finger beneath Wen Kexing's chin and lifted it enough to kiss him, chaste and gentle and loving. He poured everything into that kiss; every promise, every shared lifetime and memory…
"I'll solve it," he whispered to him, nuzzling close. "I'll solve it for you. For us. For our forever. It's always been you, waiting, seeking, it's my turn to find you and keep you."
"A-Xu--"
"Just wait for me," Zhou Zishu kissed him again. Wen Kexing made a sound. "I'll always find you, Lao Wen. Not even these walls can hide you from me."
Wen Kexing offered a smile, very slight, and ducked his head in semblance of a nod. And then Zhou Zishu was kissing him again, deeper, desperately, hungry and aching.
It felt like an ending, it tasted like rust.
Zhou Zishu let Wen Kexing go before he changed his mind and reached out to take the Goblin Queen's hand.
"I accept your terms," he said. Her only answer was a smile, and as Zhou Zishu turned his head to look back at Wen Kexing, he saw nothing but a bricked up dead end.