Archive of Our Own

The first time the key slots into the lock, Song Lan doesn’t think anything of it. Yes, it’s a little sooner than he was expecting Xingchen back—only early afternoon, and he had said this morning that he wanted to stop by at the gym to get in a few rounds of sparring after his meditation class finished—but that isn’t anything unusual. Plans change; Song Lan has no reason to believe that the doorknob turning is anything other than his housemate coming home.

Except, for some reason, the doorknob doesn’t turn. Instead the key rattles in the lock, pauses, and withdraws. And then it slides in again, and again cannot seem to open the door.

That’s when he starts getting worried. He slips the bookmark into his book, sets it down on the coffee table, and gets to his feet. “Xingchen?” he calls, walking out into the hallway. “Is everything alright?”

There is no answer. This time when the key fails to turn, there is a sense of desperation in the way it grinds against the lock. His heart suddenly pounding in his throat, Song Lan picks up his pace to the door, unlocking it and reaching for the knob. If something is wrong, if Xingchen is hurt, and that’s why he can’t get the door unlocked—or maybe it’s someone trying to trick him, to get him to open it for them—but Fuxue is on the rack in the entryway, and his sword can be in his hand in under two seconds if there’s trouble—

The door bursts open, and instinctively Song Lan takes half a step back. “What’s going on? Are you okay—” he begins, but then his voice just dies in his throat: because, standing on his doorstep, holding a house key and swaying gently with exhaustion, is another Song Lan staring back at him in just as much shock as he feels.

They’re not a perfect mirror to each other. Where Song Lan is in joggers and a t-shirt, clothes for a quiet Saturday at home, the duplicate is kitted out for a night-hunt, in combat boots, a tactical vest, and the same kind of practical clothing Song Lan himself wears when he expects to be fighting a yaoguai. His hair is drawn back in an efficient french braid; even then, it falls further down his spine than Song Lan’s, which is only just long enough to pull into a knot on the back of his head. He has a couple more earrings than Song Lan, and he’s wearing glasses. Most prominently, he also has a gash across his forehead, bleeding sluggishly down his temple and crusting into his hair.

“Oh,” says the other Song Lan. “No wonder the key didn’t work. I’m going to kill Wei Wuxian.”

That immediately raises at least half a dozen questions, but Song Lan doesn’t get the chance to ask them: his other self sags into the doorway, and some instinct compels him to catch him before he hits the ground. The other Song Lan staggers over the threshold, slumping heavily against his shoulder, and gives his arm a grateful squeeze.

“I knew I should have listened to Xue Yang about that fucking talisman,” he says deliriously, and promptly passes out.

Song Lan hoists his double into a fireman’s carry and hauls him into the living room. He lays him out on the couch; takes off his glasses, tac vest, and combat boots; and goes to the bathroom to get a washcloth, which he wets with cool water and brings back out to clean the blood from his other self’s forehead. Then he sits on the floor of the living room, draws his legs up to his chest, puts his face down onto his knees, and tries very hard not to have an anxiety attack. And then, of course, he calls Xingchen.

Xingchen is, to put it mildly, a little concerned.

“I really can’t explain,” Song Lan says, casting an agonized look at the other him, still passed out on the couch. “I just, it’s not—you won’t believe it till you see it. Please come home.”

“Zichen, you’re scaring me,” Xingchen says. In the background Song Lan can hear the ambient noise of the sparring gym, of Xingchen hastily packing up his things to leave early. “Are you hurt? You’re not in danger, are you?”

“I’m not, I’m not,” Song Lan promises, though it occurs to him belatedly that he’s not actually sure if that’s true. He remembers his fear of a trick with a sickening lurch. “Just—hurry back, you’ll see.”

“Okay,” Xingchen says in his gentle voice: ready to drop anything at Song Lan’s first word, explanation or no, just as he always is. Song Lan’s heart clenches painfully; he pushes his longing away. Now is not the time. “I’ll take Shuanghua. I should be home in ten minutes. Call me if anything else happens.”

“I will,” Song Lan says. “See you soon.”

Xingchen ends the call. With nothing to distract himself, Song Lan soon finds himself staring at his double again, searching fervently for some sign of who he is and where he’s come from. His other self’s unconscious form provides him with no answers: he’s as inscrutably alike to Song Lan as before.

Or—maybe not, Song Lan realizes. Now that he’s looking him over more closely—now that he’s calmed down from the awful initial shock of being confronted with his duplicate—he can see differences between them that go beyond mere choices of grooming. The other Song Lan has fine lines around his mouth and the corners of his eyes; his five o’clock shadow seems darker, and his hands a bit more worn. Passed out as he is, it’s hard to say, but the set of his mouth looks less severe than Song Lan would expect to see in his own mirror, as though he’s more accustomed to smiling. And those subtle touches aside, there is also some indefinable air of maturity to his double, even in unconsciousness. The more Song Lan looks at him, the more convinced he becomes that his other self is older.

Xingchen gets home a few minutes later; Song Lan can hear him taking off his shoes and setting his bag down, but notably, he does not put Shuanghua on the rack. “Zichen?” he says.

“In the living room,” Song Lan calls back.

“It must be serious,” Xingchen says, coming down the hall and through the doorway. “You left the front door unlocked. What’s—”

Wordlessly Song Lan shifts out of the way, letting him see exactly who is lying on their couch; and just like his own did, Xingchen’s voice dies mid-sentence.

For an endless age he only stands there. Then he takes a slow step forward, and another, until he’s standing next to Song Lan and staring down at his unconscious doppelganger. The expression on his face is—Song Lan cannot put a name to it. There’s wonder there, and confusion, and a depth of dread that is very nearly frightening. “Oh,” Xingchen says finally. “I can see why you didn’t think I’d believe it.”

A startled, ragged laugh tears itself from Song Lan’s throat. “What do we do?”

Far less gracefully than he normally would, Xingchen folds himself down into a seat. His eyes still haven’t left the other Song Lan. “What happened?” he says.

As usual, Song Lan knows exactly what he means. He thinks back, trying to put the events into an order that makes some form of sense. “He had a key,” he starts at last. “Not for our door, I mean, it didn’t work, but he obviously thought it would, he tried it three times before I got the door unlocked. When I opened it, he—” He has to stop, shaking his head, his thoughts still shying away from the mind-bending impossibility of that moment. “We just stared at each other. He wasn’t expecting—I mean—you don’t think he’s a guai, do you? If he was trying to—to hurt me, or take my place, he wouldn’t have been surprised—”

“I don’t think there’s any way to know who he is for sure until he wakes up,” Xingchen says: steady, patient, as implacable as ever in the face of an unthinkable problem. Despite himself, despite everything, Song Lan feels his pulse settle a bit. “Keep going. What next?”

“He looked at me,” Song Lan says. “He said, no wonder his key didn’t work. He said he was going to kill Wei Wuxian. And then he—he sort of collapsed, his forehead was bleeding, and I caught him, and—” The words are burned into his brain. It was strange to hear himself swear; it will be stranger still to say it with his own voice, though nowhere near as strange as the message it accompanies. “He said, ‘I knew I should have listened to Xue Yang about that fucking talisman.’ And then he just passed out.”

Xingchen’s gaze jerks back to him, incredulous and surprised. “Xue Yang?” he says, and then: “Wei Wuxian?”

“I know,” Song Lan says. “I know. Xingchen, I think he’s older than me. Do you think he could be from the future?”

Xingchen opens his mouth immediately, stops, closes it, and frowns. “I don’t know,” he says finally, lovely even in bewilderment. “I’ve never heard of something like that, but—it could be possible, couldn’t it? And I don’t know what else he might be.” He looks down: his hand is still wrapped around the hilt of his sword. “Shuanghua hasn’t reacted to him at all. I don’t think he’s a guai, Zichen.”

Simultaneously Song Lan’s heart sinks, even as the tension unknots itself from his shoulders. There was a part of him that had hoped the other Song Lan was a guai, if only because that was a problem with a simple solution. But at the same time the idea of trying to kill something wearing his own face had filled him with a foreboding sense of horror. On balance, he thinks, it’s a relief. And if Xingchen agrees with him, if he too believes this is a trouble that will not be so easily solved—

“No. Me neither,” Song Lan says. “What do we do?”

Xingchen hums, and turns his attention back on the other Song Lan for a very long moment. Song Lan shoves aside an unhelpful surge of jealousy; he tries not to read too much into the way Xingchen watches his double’s breathing, in the worry in his eyes as he studies the gash on his forehead and the way his mouth goes soft the longer his gaze lingers. It’s hard not to: he’s never seen Xingchen look at him quite like that before.

“I think we should call Xue Yang,” he says eventually, abruptly, jarring Song Lan unpleasantly from the near-equilibrium he had finally attained. “If the other you trusts him enough to depend on him, maybe he can help.”

Actually, Song Lan decides, this is not a relief at all.

There are very few circumstances in which Song Lan would willingly listen to Xue Yang. Granted, he’s not the worst person Song Lan’s ever had to spend time with: he’s smart, magnetic, and reasonably reliable on a night hunt—that is, as long as he’s not messing around with forbidden cultivation techniques, or taking out a bad mood on something that doesn’t deserve it, or haring off on his own because he saw a good opening and couldn’t be bothered to let anyone else know about it. Song Lan and Xingchen are rogue cultivators, freelancers, and have worked with a broad variety of short-term collaborators over the years; Xue Yang is the only one who keeps coming back. Frankly, Song Lan would prefer that he didn’t.

It’s not just that he’s reckless, or vicious, or a demonic cultivator. He’s also personally obnoxious: loud, crude, quick to anger, and with apparently no sense of common courtesy. He seems to take a particular mean delight in needling Song Lan until he snaps, or hitting on him in the most mocking way possible; Song Lan hasn’t known anyone who could get under his skin like Xue Yang since he was a child and didn’t know any better, and the fact that Xue Yang looks good while he’s doing it just makes everything worse. And on top of all that, Xingchen actually likes him—spends time with him alone, texts him regularly, even finds him funny—and turns pleading, disappointed eyes on Song Lan whenever he responds to Xue Yang’s provocations. Song Lan has long since resigned himself to the impossibility of extracting Xue Yang from his life.

He is also self-aware enough to admit that he could overlook most of the rest, if only Xingchen wasn’t quite so receptive to Xue Yang’s flirtations. But as it is, seeing the most annoying person he knows making eyes at the man he’s been silently in love with for years—

Well. There are a lot of reasons he can’t conceive of his other self actually trusting Xue Yang on anything. That he’s incredibly pretty is just adding insult to injury.

Of course, Xue Yang drops everything to come over to their place when Xingchen calls: he’ll do that for Xingchen. If Song Lan had been the one to try it, he’d have gotten sworn at, argued with, and eventually hung up on, and they would be no closer to finding a solution to his duplicate’s unexpected appearance in their home.

“This is really fucking weird, you know,” Xue Yang says, for the third time since he got here.

Song Lan suppresses a surge of irritation. “Yes, we got that,” he says. “I assure you, I am very aware of just how weird it is.”

Xue Yang casts him a look, then rakes his eyes over the double again. There is something uncomfortably speculative in it; Song Lan isn’t even the one being looked at—not really—and he still feels like prey under a predator’s gaze. “Just how identical are you?” Xue Yang says.

That’s self-evident, isn’t it? “You can see his hair,” Song Lan says. “He wears glasses. He looks like he might be a little older than me.”

“Not what I meant, Zichen,” Xue Yang singsongs. He grins at Song Lan wickedly, hiking a brow. “You take his clothes off?”

For a moment Song Lan just gapes at him. His pulse pounds in his temple; he can feel a dull flush creeping over his cheeks. “Can you take this seriously?” he snaps. “How is that at all relevant?!”

“Jesus, chill, I was just wondering.”

“Focus, please, Yang’er,” Xingchen says, wresting control of the conversation once again. “You know more about resentful energy than we do. Is there anything you can tell us?”

Xue Yang turns those uncomfortably piercing eyes back on the other Song Lan, his expression smoothing out as he studies him. “Not really,” he says. “Not yet, anyway. Except that you were right, he’s definitely not a guai. There’s no resentful energy clinging to him.” He frowns and closes his eyes, reaching out with one strong hand, his fingers twitching as he manipulates forces Song Lan can neither see nor comprehend. “Or—there’s a bit more than I’d expect from Song Lan, actually, but—” He screws up his face briefly, but then relaxes, blinking his eyes open and giving a careless shrug. “Dunno. It’s weird, but totally within normal human parameters.”

Song Lan grits his teeth. He manages to restrain himself from pointing out that it’s not a bad thing to be reluctant to engage with resentful energy. “Perfect. So we’re no further along than we already were,” he says.

Xue Yang bristles immediately. “If you don’t want my help, asshole—”

“Thank you, Yang’er,” Xingchen cuts in, before Xue Yang can get any more vocally pissed off. “It’s good to get a definitive confirmation.”

Xue Yang is still scowling at Song Lan, looking very much like he’d love nothing more than spill his guts across the floor. Song Lan folds his arms across his chest, glaring right back. After a while Xue Yang subsides, muttering irritably under his breath.

Xingchen just carries on serenely, as though he hasn’t noticed the contest of wills taking place at his side. “I doubt we’re going to get any more useful answers while he’s still unconscious,” he says. “If neither of you has any other ideas, I’m going to see if passing him some spiritual energy will help.”

Xue Yang considers the question, then begrudgingly shakes his head. Song Lan just stares at his other self, his heartbeat heavy in his ears. It’s bad enough, seeing another version of himself passed out on his couch; is he ready to handle him awake?

“Be careful,” he says finally.

Xingchen gives him a grateful glance, sinking to his knees next to the couch. “I know,” he says. “Thank you, Zichen.”

“Ugh, save it,” Xue Yang says.

Xingchen ignores him, lifting the double’s wrist to start feeding qi into his meridians.

It’s strangely disconcerting for Song Lan to watch himself wake up from the outside in. After a few moments of Xingchen’s qi pulsing slow and golden through his other self, awareness flickers across his face. He arcs his spine in a familiar stretch and rubs the sleep from his eyes without yet opening them, just as Song Lan always does. And then: “Xingchen,” he says, with such open fondness and instinctive familiarity that Song Lan nearly chokes. “I had such a strange dream.”

And then he blinks his eyes open, and goes still all at once, and sits up very, very slowly.

“Oh,” he says.

Xue Yang barks out a laugh, but he doesn’t sound especially amused. “Yeah, I guess that’s one way to put it,” he says. “You’d better have a really fucking good explanation for why I’m stuck dealing with two of you assholes. Who the fuck are you and what the hell are you doing here?”

The other Song Lan’s forehead creases. “What? You know who I am, Yang’er, what are you talking about?”

Xue Yang rears back like he’s been slapped, anger chasing shock from his face. “The fuck did you just call me?”

“Yang’er—”

“Shut up!”

“Please,” Xingchen interrupts, pushing himself to his feet and putting a hand on Xue Yang’s forearm. “This isn’t helping. Calm down and let’s start at the beginning.”

Song Lan finds he can say nothing at all. There’s a fist about his lungs; his words have deserted him entirely. Swallowing around the lump in his throat—he cannot tell if it’s fear, or envy, or anticipation, or some potent mixture of all three—he watches helplessly as his other self swings his legs down over the side of the couch, scrubbing at his face and sighing into his hands.

“Where are my glasses?” he says finally. Silently Song Lan picks them up from the coffee table and holds them out to him. “Thank you,” he says, and puts them on, and then looks up at him properly for the first time since he regained consciousness. “Oh… god, I’d thought so, but—how old are you? Twenty-five?”

There’s such a tender and unexpected sympathy on his face that it knocks Song Lan’s voice free. “Twenty-six,” he says. Does he look like that himself? Is his face so easy to read? Or can he only see it because he’s so intimately familiar with the nuances of his own expressions?

His other self—Zichen, he decides, he’ll have to think of him as Zichen, or else he’s going to go insane—sits back, exhaling a slow breath. “Twenty-six. Okay. I guess that—explains some things.”

“How old are you?” Xingchen says, suddenly intent. “Zichen—I mean—oh, you know what I mean. He thought you might have come back in time. Was he right?”

“He must have been,” Zichen says, and gets to his feet, a careful unfolding. He seems taller than Song Lan, somehow; and he’s not wearing boots, so maybe it’s just the way he carries himself. “I’m thirty-three. I remember when I looked like him.” His eyes linger on Song Lan again, still with that strange gentleness. “I think this is the past, for me.”

Song Lan had suspected it already, of course, but hearing it confirmed still gives him an awful lurch of existential distress somewhere in the vicinity of his ribcage. Is Zichen his future? Is the future set in stone? And how does this work, anyway? If he has any say in his own life at all, surely that would mean he can take steps to prevent himself going back in time by accident, but then he’d have to worry about creating a paradox, and—

Xingchen cuts him off before he can spiral any further. “But how did you get here? You didn’t do it on purpose, did you? Do you have any idea how to get back?”

Zichen opens his mouth to respond, but before he can say anything Xue Yang cuts in with a snarl. “No, fuck that. We can deal with that later,” he says. “I want to know why the fuck you’re calling me Yang’er.”

Song Lan turns to look at him, and nearly steps back in surprise. The poison on Xue Yang’s face is unlike anything he’s ever seen before. It twists his features, wiping away his usual handsomeness; even directed at someone else, it makes Song Lan’s heart flutter uneasily. Xue Yang is staring at Zichen like he could happily knife him and leave him to bleed out in some grimy back alley, his eyes alive with hate. Song Lan doesn’t think he could be on the receiving end of that expression without gearing up for a fight.

But Zichen, somehow, doesn’t tense up at all. Instead he just considers Xue Yang for a long moment, something unhappy in the set of his mouth. “I’m not sure I should say,” he says quietly. “I’ve already made enough of a mess of things just being here. I don’t want to influence you too much.”

“Don’t give me that shit,” Xue Yang snaps. “You think that’s gonna make any more of a difference than you existing in this timeline at all? Fuck off. You said it yourself, you’ve already fucked things up. Why are you calling me Yang’er?!”

“Xue Yang, please—” Xingchen says, and reaches out to him again.

“I’m leaving,” Xue Yang says, jerking away from his touch. “I swear to fucking god, Xingchen, I’m leaving right now, I’m not doing shit to help if he doesn’t give me a fucking explanation.”

Despite himself, Song Lan feels obscurely stung. It’s not that he wants to call Xue Yang by a pet name, but Xingchen calls him Yang’er all the time, and it’s never once been a problem. “Alright, we get it, you can’t stand me,” he says. “Is this really the time?”

“Shut the fuck up, Song Lan—”

“We’re dating,” Zichen says. “The future version of you, I mean, back in my—you’re my boyfriend.”

All at once the living room is enormously, echoingly silent, as though a vast cavern has opened up invisibly all around them. There is a ringing in Song Lan’s ears. Xingchen’s lips are parted softly, but for once he can’t seem to find anything to say. And Xue Yang—

Xue Yang’s expression has gone fierce and tight. “Bullshit,” he says. “There’s no way you’d ever get with someone like me and we both know it. And what about Xingchen? You expect me to believe you’d just forget about him? Bullshit.”

Song Lan feels like he’s had the floor yanked out from under him. He’s never spoken to anyone about being in love; but he’s also never fooled himself about how likely it is that Xingchen has already figured it out, and is just politely avoiding the subject for Song Lan’s comfort. For Xue Yang to just drag it all out into the open like that—

“I haven’t forgotten about Xingchen,” Zichen says patiently. “I’m dating him too. We both are. All three of us are together.”

The silence that descends now is like a blanket of snow, dampening all sound. Nothing feels real anymore. That’s what it is, Song Lan thinks hysterically: it’s been a dream from the start. There’s no time travel, no other self, and no heartbreakingly impossible future where he’s somehow in a relationship with both the man he’s been in love with for years and the most irritating person he knows.

“Wh—what?” Xingchen says at last, awed and tremulous. Song Lan has to tear his eyes away: the wonder on his face is too much to be borne.

“In the future, you’re our boyfriend,” Zichen repeats. “Or—a version of you is, anyway, I don’t know how this works. We’ve been together for nearly six years. Xue Yang moved in about five years ago. That must be why my key didn’t work, actually, he did some talismanic upgrades when he came to live with us. We had the locks changed.”

“That’s not possible,” Song Lan says. He doesn’t realize the words are going to come out of his mouth until they already have.

But Zichen just shrugs and lifts his hand to his throat to fiddle with his necklace, a familiar self-soothing gesture. “Believe it or not, but it’s true.”

“Prove it,” Xue Yang says abruptly. “Tell me something you wouldn’t know otherwise.”

Song Lan expects Zichen to bristle—he would bristle, if Xue Yang demanded something of him in that tone—but all he does is raise an eyebrow. “Are you fishing for details about our sex life?”

Xue Yang actually looks slightly taken aback at that. “What? No. Fuck off.”

“I’m not going to try to prove anything,” Zichen says, like that was exactly the response he expected. “Anything I might say, you’d just tell me I could have learned it some other way. You’re very stubborn, Yang’er—”

“Stop calling me that!”

“—and if you’ve decided I’m lying to you, nothing I do is going to change your mind.”

“Is that supposed to change my mind? Ooh, look how well you know me, you must be my boyfriend—”

“No,” Zichen says. He hasn’t flinched even once, which is possibly the most convincing piece of evidence Song Lan has that he really is telling the truth. “Like I said, I’m not going to try to prove anything.”

“Could we—maybe—” Xingchen begins, and then cuts himself off, blowing out a frustrated breath. “Look, this is clearly a lot for us to process. But we’ve gotten really off-track. We still don’t know how Zichen—older Zichen—oh, I don’t know what to call you!”

Abruptly he looks nearly on the verge of tears. Song Lan’s heart stutters. Xingchen cries so rarely; he has no idea how to comfort him. But to his astonishment, before he has to do anything at all, Zichen steps forward to take him by the shoulders—like it’s natural, like he does it all the time—and folds him into his arms. Helplessly Xingchen collapses against him, burying his face in his collar.

“It’s alright, xingan, breathe,” Zichen says. “You don’t have to fix everything yourself. Call me Zichen-ge, if you like. It’ll be easier.”

“Zichen-ge,” Xingchen agrees, muffled into his shirt. Song Lan doesn’t know where to look. He can hardly believe any version of him is touching someone so willingly and comfortably, even when that someone is Xingchen. He’s left turning the word xingan over in his mind: hearing it in his own voice, the ease with which it was spoken. He thinks he might be sick with jealousy.

“Oh my god, fuck this so much,” Xue Yang says, and for once Song Lan actually agrees with him. “That’s it, I’m out, you can solve your own fucking problems.”

“No, wait,” Xingchen says, and pushes himself out of Zichen’s arms. “Yang’er, wait, please. At least until you hear what could have caused it. We really might need your help.”

“You’re probably the best chance I’ve got,” Zichen agrees. “Unless you think we could get Wei Wuxian to take over.”

Xue Yang, who had been on his way out of the living room, turns around abruptly. “Wei Wuxian,” he says. “As in, ‘founder of the demonic cultivation path’ Wei Wuxian. Wei Wuxian who created several hundred new talismans and invented spiritual tools that have been adopted across the entire cultivation world. That Wei Wuxian.”

Zichen’s brow furrows. “Yes?” he says. “You can definitely match him, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Xue Yang laughs incredulously, but doesn’t say anything.

“You mentioned something about him before,” Song Lan recalls. Are their histories that divergent? What does that mean for their hopes of sending him home? “Is he… around, where you’re from? He’s not… I mean…”

“Nobody’s heard from him in years,” Xingchen says softly when Song Lan trails off, unable to find the words. “As far as anyone knows, he’s dead. He’s alive in your time?”

For a moment Zichen just blinks at them, and then he groans and puts his face in his hands. “Oh, god, I forgot when he—okay. This has nothing to do with you, so I’m not going to say any more, but he’s not actually dead. Or, well—it’s complicated. Pretend to be shocked in a couple of years when he—” He stops, shaking his head, and exhales a slow breath. “Never mind. It’s fine. If he’s not available Xue Yang is definitely our best bet, I don’t know anyone else who could match you on experimental cultivation.”

Xue Yang is staring at him with a very strange expression on his face. “This is,” he says, “completely fucking insane. You know that, right? Fine, I’ll let you explain how the fuck you got here, and then maybe I’ll consider helping you figure your shit out. Can we get this over with?”

“Maybe we could—sit down?” Song Lan says, gesturing jerkily at the couch and chairs. “I’m going to put water on for tea.”

“That would be great,” Zichen says, and sits heavily back down on the couch. “My head is killing me.”

Song Lan escapes to the kitchen, doing a round of deep breathing exercises as he fills up the electric kettle and sets it for green tea. He puts it on to heat, gets four mugs down out of the cupboard, and puts a bag of Moroccan mint tea into each of them. He spends the next two minutes carefully thinking of nothing at all. When the kettle clicks off, he pours water into the mugs, and then picks up two in each hand and carries them back to the living room.

He distributes tea to everyone; both Zichen and Xingchen accept theirs with a murmured thanks, but Xue Yang—who has sequestered himself in the chair as far away from everyone else as he can possibly get—doesn’t even look at him as he takes his. Feeling like he’s walking a tightrope, Song Lan settles into the other armchair, cupping his hands around the soothing warmth of his mug.

“Okay,” Zichen says once he’s taken a couple fortifying swallows. “I’ll explain it as well as I can. I don’t know all the technical details, though, so…” He shrugs awkwardly. “We were out night-hunting—the three of us, I mean, plus Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji. They’d called us in for backup.”

“Lan Wangji was working with Wei Wuxian?” Xue Yang says. “Go big or go home, I guess. You really think we’re gonna believe—no, you know what, never mind, you’re not going to explain shit anyway, why bother.”

“This is so stupid,” Zichen mutters. “Ya—Xue Yang. Give me some credit. If I was going to make up a lie, I’d make up something plausible. Lan Wangji is not the point.”

Xue Yang blows out a sigh. “Fine, fine, what is the fucking point, then?”

Zichen visibly suppresses a groan. “We were fighting a ghost, a powerful one,” he says. “It had the ability to pull—echoes, I guess you’d call it, backwards or forwards in time. It seemed like it was moving around in time too. Wei Wuxian was drawing up a talisman array to pin it in place.” He shoots Xue Yang a look. “He called you in to get a second opinion, and Xingchen and I to help Lan Wangji keep it off your backs while you worked.”

So many parts of this story are beyond Song Lan’s belief—that Wei Wuxian is alive, that he’s friend enough to rogue cultivators like them to call them in for assistance, that he’d want Xue Yang’s help or see him as a peer. And yet at the same time, Zichen is right: he has no reason to lie to them, and Song Lan can’t imagine any version of himself inventing such an outlandish story just to try to get someone’s help. Maybe, he thinks, he’ll just have to accept that his other self leads a much stranger life than he does.

“That sounds… complicated,” Xingchen says.

“It seemed like it was,” Zichen says. He’s playing with his necklace again, cupping his hand around the charm and running his thumb along its loop. “They were arguing for a while. Wei Wuxian thought the talisman was working the way it was supposed to, but Yang’er—my version of Xue Yang, I mean—said there was a problem, something about the placement of the radicals. I didn’t really catch much of it.”

Xingchen smiles weakly. “You were busy with the ghost, I imagine.”

“Yeah,” Zichen says. “And it was—not going very well. Wei Wuxian had given us all emergency transport talismans in case we needed to get out, but our placement in time was still pretty unstable, and—” He shrugs uncomfortably. “I got hurt and tried to retreat. I should have listened to Xue Yang, obviously.”

Xue Yang just stares at him, mouth agape, as stunned as Song Lan is by a version of him who’s willing to admit that Xue Yang was right about anything. Unfairly, he looks even prettier with his usual snappishness wiped from his face. Into the silence, Zichen picks up his mug again, reminding Song Lan of the existence of his own. He takes a sip from it; it’s over-steeped, but that suits his mood right now. In a few gulps he drinks down half the cup.

“So that’s it?” Xue Yang says finally. “A ghost with some kind of time fuckery, a talisman to hold it in place, and a transport? Something went wrong and you go back in time seven fucking years? Can you give me anything else?”

“Yes. The transport talisman,” Zichen says, and leans down to grab his tac vest from where Song Lan had set it on the floor. He fishes in one of his pockets for a sheet of talisman paper, passing it over to Xue Yang. “I don’t have the other array, or anything to do with the ghost, but you might still be able to read traces of them in my spiritual energy.”

Xue Yang scoffs, but he snatches up the paper, already absorbed in its study. “And you’d just let me do that, huh?”

Zichen gives him a steady look, like he’s entirely accustomed to being questioned by Xue Yang and bearing up under his scrutiny. “I’m offering,” he says. “I trust you.”

Song Lan has no idea how to respond to that, and abruptly it’s all too much. He pushes himself to his feet, abandoning his tea. “I’m going to go set up the guest bed,” he says.

“Do you want help?” Xingchen says.

There is literally nothing Song Lan wants less right now than to be alone with any one of them. “No. No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

Xingchen nods, giving him an understanding look. Song Lan ducks away from it and escapes into the hall. Behind him Xue Yang has pulled out some blank talisman paper and is already scribbling away at it, quizzing Zichen on the details of his night-hunt and ignoring everything else, compelling in his focus. Song Lan takes himself up the stairs and away from the unavoidable gravity of all that Zichen represents.

Xue Yang stays long enough to extract every possible scrap of information from Zichen’s memory, run several inscrutable talismanic tests in their living room, and inhale half the shrimp summer rolls Song Lan puts together for dinner. Then he goes home, a sheaf of notes stuffed into the front of his jacket, making vague but ominous promises about having some results by tomorrow morning. Song Lan shuts the front door behind him with a profound sense of relief.

He’s spent most of the afternoon avoiding Zichen, but with the house quieting down for the evening he finds himself drawn inevitably back into his orbit. He has no idea what to say to this older version of himself, cannot even make himself consider what Zichen told them about his relationships; but all the same his eyes stick to him at every turn, even when he tries to focus elsewhere.

It must be awkward for Zichen: Song Lan knows it would be for him. But he handles it remarkably well, settling onto their couch with the exact book Song Lan rereads whenever he wants something comforting and predictable. Zichen makes it halfway through the novel while Song Lan fidgets and stares and fails to read his own book at all.

Eventually Zichen lays his novel down. “I might go to bed,” he says. “It’s been a long day.”

It’s still early, but Song Lan can’t say he blames him. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re okay with the office?”

Zichen flashes him a little smile. “The sofa bed’s pretty comfortable.”

Right. Of course he’d already know that. “It’s ready for you. I’ll get you a toothbrush,” Song Lan adds. “And—you can use my shampoo. Obviously.”

“You should lend him some pyjamas, Zichen,” Xingchen says. “I’ll get the toiletries.”

Song Lan and Zichen are both, it seems, in the habit of following Xingchen’s instructions. They go upstairs. Xingchen stops at the bathroom; Song Lan carries on to his bedroom, digging through his closet for sweatpants and a soft t-shirt he can give his older self. Normally he hates the idea of anyone borrowing his clothes, but that’s so utterly preposterous a concern in this case that he doesn’t even hesitate. But he still can’t shake the sense that Zichen is slightly bigger than him—for all he knows, he could be: a lot of people put on a little weight going into their thirties—so he takes the time to finds pyjamas that hang a little loose on him. He wants him to feel at ease.

He’s on his way back to the office when some sixth sense compels him to pause. Xingchen is in the room already, only just visible through the doorway. Zichen is standing much closer to him than Song Lan would normally permit.

“I’d forgotten how bright these used to be,” Zichen says, taking the towel—a vivid sunny yellow—from Xingchen’s arms. “They’re pretty faded now.”

“I can’t imagine you keeping towels for that long,” Xingchen says, with unexpected humour in his voice. “They must be nearly fifteen years old for you.”

“Well. I don’t use them for this anymore,” Zichen says. “They’re mostly to wipe up if we get muddy on a night-hunt. We got new ones, with blue stripes.”

“That sounds nice,” Xingchen says. “Oh, here. Toothbrush.”

“Thank you.”

Song Lan doesn’t see what happens next, only the result: abruptly Xingchen flinches, and then suppresses it just as quickly. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. It’s not you, I promise,” he says. The angle is wrong for Song Lan to see his expression, but his voice is stricken.

“No, no, it’s not—” Zichen says. He steps away, out of Song Lan’s sight. “It was my fault. Habit. I shouldn’t have—it’s hard to remember you’re not the same Xingchen I’m dating.”

“Still,” Xingchen says miserably. “That’s no reason for me to—all you did was touch my arm.”

The office is tense with silence for a moment. Song Lan, in the hallway, feels like he’s holding his breath; he wants to take a step back to put himself further out of view, but he’s afraid it would only draw their attention. Instead he hovers, powerless to move in either direction, desperate to know what Zichen will say and unable to guess what he’s hoping for.

“I’m sorry,” Zichen says finally. He almost sounds like he’s biting back tears. “I didn’t mean—I’m so scared, I don’t know if I’ve ever been this scared, and I just want my boyfriends, and you’re here but you’re not you, and—my brain knows you’re not the same person, but my body doesn’t. I don’t know what to do.”

Even with his face out of view, Song Lan can see Xingchen’s edges softening. It’s that compassionate impulse that makes him so good, so much the man that Song Lan loves. “No, you’re right,” he says. “I’ve been struggling with what it means for us to have you here. I didn’t really think about what it means for you.” He laughs a little, rueful and kind. “I think you’re… a lot more self-assured, I guess, than I’m used to seeing you—my version of you, I mean. It seemed like you were handling it.”

Zichen’s answering chuckle is shaky. “Yeah. Seeing him—I don’t think I’d realized how much I’ve changed, these last few years.”

“I hope I’ll get to see it happen,” Xingchen says quietly, and then—responding to some cue that Song Lan cannot see: “Oh, oh no, it’s okay. Xue Yang will figure this out, I know he will. We’ll get you home.” He hesitates another moment, then adds, “Do you want a hug?”

Suddenly Song Lan’s heart is careening wildly in his chest. Xingchen has never offered him a hug, rarely ever even touches him—has always been devotedly conscientious about how much Song Lan dislikes physical contact. And yet he often finds himself craving it anyway: hoarding the brief moments of touch they do have, and wishing that Xingchen would push him just a little bit more than he does. He had always thought that Xingchen didn’t want to push him; but now, when presented with a version of Song Lan who wants him close, who claims they’re in a longtime relationship seven years into the future, all of his painstaking distance has been aggressively stripped away.

Song Lan has no idea what to make of it, and even less when his older self takes him up on the offer immediately. Zichen doesn’t even bother to answer in words: just circles his arms around Xingchen’s waist and tucks his face into his shoulder. Xingchen nearly flinches again for a moment, but then all the tension goes out of him at once and he pulls Zichen into a hug. Zichen seems to relax at that too, and they linger there for a while, just holding each other.

“That necklace,” Xingchen says finally. “Is it what I think it is?”

“Probably,” Zichen says, mumbled into his collar. “I’m sorry. I know you’re not him, but can I pretend for a minute?”

“Of course you can,” Xingchen says softly. “As long as I can pretend, too.”

Wordlessly Zichen tightens his grip around Xingchen’s waist. Song Lan’s brain goes into a tailspin. His heart hurts; he can hardly breathe. Silently he edges back out of the hallway, inch by inch, until he can’t see into the office anymore. He leaves the pyjamas folded in a neat stack outside his bedroom, gently closes the door, and goes to bed.

Xue Yang turns up on their doorstep at 11:47 the next day, sipping a giant iced coffee and wearing sunglasses despite the overcast sky. Song Lan, who has been avoiding both Xingchen and Zichen since he woke up, is the one to let him in.

If he’s surprised to see Song Lan behind the door, he doesn’t show it. He gives him a once-over, obvious even behind the glasses. “Hey handsome,” he purrs. He looks like an asshole; it’s infuriatingly hot. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Shut up,” Song Lan says, but he’s too tired to put any heat into it. “I thought you said you’d be here in the morning.”

“Do you see the clock? See how it’s not noon yet?” Xue Yang shoots back, taking another swig of his coffee and dropping a suspiciously heavy backpack on the floor of the entryway. “It’s still morning, Song Lan.”

He hasn’t taken off his sunglasses. “Are you hungover?” Song Lan says, incredulous.

“No, I was up until five a.m. working on this shit and the sun’s too bright,” Xue Yang bites back. “Quit being a dick and fuck off, Zichen. Unless you feel like bringing me some breakfast.”

Song Lan sighs, gives up, and goes to the kitchen to make Xue Yang a peanut butter sandwich. As annoying as it is, at least it gives him something to do. He’d rather deal with being bitched at than think about what he overheard in the office last night.

By the time he comes back—with a sandwich, a bowl of apple slices, and a big glass of orange juice—Xingchen and Zichen have made their way into the living room, and Xue Yang is already lecturing at full steam on the progress he’s made and the talismanic principles he’s working under. He only pauses in his too-rapid monologue when Song Lan sets the food down in front of him, cutting off mid-word and turning to stare at him through amber-tinted lenses.

“You wanted breakfast,” Song Lan says awkwardly, and backs away to sit in the spare armchair.

Xue Yang continues to stare at him for a moment, then warily picks up the sandwich and starts talking again. Xingchen suppresses a smile, studiously avoiding eye contact; Zichen gives him a knowing and almost wistful look. Song Lan pretends very firmly that he hasn’t noticed either of them, and concentrates on listening to Xue Yang.

After a dizzying and frankly incomprehensible rundown of the theoretical work of crafting a new talisman, Xue Yang sets up to run another series of tests. Song Lan very rapidly loses the thread of what’s going on. He doesn’t think Zichen is following it any better than he is; but he nevertheless complies with endless patience to every order Xue Yang gives, no matter how bizarre. Xue Yang scribbles notes, draws up new talismans, sets up a series of arrays, and makes Zichen activate them, then takes readings of his qi, scribbles more notes, and repeats the whole process. Every so often he has Song Lan and Xingchen participate as well, maintaining an array while Xue Yang layers a second one on top of it, or activating a sequence of talismans to spare Zichen exhausting his spiritual energy. By the time six o’clock rolls around, they’re all worn down, hungry, and snappish. Song Lan has no idea what they’ve accomplished; but Xue Yang seems satisfied with the whole endeavour, and claims to have gotten promising results. They order a stack of pizzas and fall on them the moment they arrive.

Finally Xingchen pushes the vegetarian away: he’s inhaled three quarters of it all on his own. “We’re done now, right?” he says. “Please tell me you’re not going to make us start this up again.”

Xue Yang waves him off. “I’ve got the readings I need for now. I’m gonna take this back to my workshop and see if I can make it make sense.”

“Good,” Xingchen says. “I’m going to go take a shower. That array with all the water radicals made me feel weirdly sticky.”

“Pussy,” Xue Yang says without heat.

Xingchen just laughs and—to Song Lan’s astonishment—drops a kiss on the top of Xue Yang’s head. He leaves the room. Song Lan blinks after him for a moment, then decides to make himself scarce. He starts jigsawing the leftovers into a single pizza box, determinedly not looking at either Zichen or Xue Yang.

But Xue Yang pays him no mind, turning his attention on Zichen instead. “So,” he says, snagging a last slice of pizza out of his box before Song Lan packs it away, “did your future self ever come back in your past? I’m guessing not, right? Otherwise you’d have had a way better idea of what to do about this shit.”

“Yeah,” Zichen says. “This is as new for me as it is for you. I’m not really sure how that’s even possible, but it’s not like I’ve ever had any reason to study time travel.”

“So how do you know I’ll even be able to get you home at all?” Xue Yang says.

His tone is deliberately casual, in a way that makes all the hair stand up on the back of Song Lan’s neck. He’s fought with Xue Yang often enough to know that’s a dangerous sound. Song Lan doesn’t know why Xue Yang’s mood has turned suddenly sharp—he’d said their data was promising, hadn’t he?—but he knows he doesn’t want to be in the room while it happens. Gathering up the leftovers with a mumbled, “Excuse me,” he beats a hasty retreat to the kitchen.

That’s only enough to get him out of the blast radius, though: not enough to keep him from overhearing their conversation. Zichen’s voice is even as he says, “I suppose I don’t that know for sure.” No matter how mean or rude Xue Yang gets, he never seems to let it rattle him.

“You’re not worried?” Xue Yang says, with a nasty lilt to it. “If you never came back in time in your own past, this might not even be another time. You might be in a whole other universe.” Song Lan does his best to ignore him, shifting things around in the fridge to put the pizza box away, but it doesn’t work: it’s like his ears are attuned to Xue Yang’s vowels, incapable of shutting him out. “I’m pretty sure I can handle time travel, but dimensional travel? You don’t think that’s a few levels above my pay grade?”

“Of course I’m worried,” Zichen says: easily, comfortably, like that’s the kind of thing he admits to Xue Yang all the time. “But I know you can handle it. You’ve never let me down before.”

“The fuck I haven’t,” Xue Yang spits, abruptly furious.

“No,” Zichen says, still totally calm. “I know you know what you’re doing, and I trust you to do it. I’m not testing you, Yang’er.”

In the kitchen, Song Lan flinches, then sets his shoulders and starts breaking down the empty boxes. Zichen hasn’t slipped up and called Xue Yang by a pet name since that first discussion yesterday, but in this conversation, and with Xue Yang already this angry—

“I told you not to fucking call me that!”

“Sorry,” Zichen says, wincing, placating. “I didn’t mean to, it’s just habit—”

“No. Shut up. You don’t fucking get it,” Xue Yang snaps. The venom is back in his voice, as bad as it was when he was threatening to leave yesterday. “You think I’m just a younger version of your Xue Yang, but I’m not, something about us is just different and you’re full of shit if you won’t admit to that!”

Zichen seems to catch some current of meaning in that that Song Lan cannot parse. “Nothing I’ve seen of you would suggest that’s true,” he says.

“You’re full of shit,” Xue Yang repeats. “You’re dating the Xue Yang in your time. That’s all the proof you need! I don’t get shit like that and you fucking know it.”

Song Lan goes utterly still, the half-flattened pizza box slipping from his fingers to clatter to the counter. Mercifully, neither Zichen nor Xue Yang seems to notice.

“That isn’t true,” Zichen says. “My Xue Yang believed that too. He was wrong, and so are you.”

“Then why hasn’t it fucking happened yet?!” Xue Yang snarls. “You think I haven’t fucking tried? You think I’m just sitting around doing nothing? If there isn’t anything different about me then it must be something about you, alright, do you actually believe my Song Lan is ever going to give me the time of fucking day?!”

“Xue Yang—”

“Don’t touch me, asshole!”

Song Lan has forgotten entirely about the pizza boxes by this point. He’s standing frozen by the entry to the kitchen, just half a room over from the shouting match happening in his living room, and he cannot remember how to breathe. None of this makes any sense. Xue Yang has never been anything but aggressive to him, has picked fights and insulted him and harassed him until he snapped. Every time he’s ever flirted, it’s been couched in open mockery, leering and parodic. And besides, he’s always hanging off of Xingchen. He can’t possibly like Song Lan.

My Song Lan, Song Lan thinks.

There is silence from the living room for a long moment. Song Lan almost imagines he can hear Xue Yang’s violent breathing. And then: “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Xue Yang laughs, high and wild and bitter. “God, you still don’t get it, do you?” he says. “He’s never going to do that for me! You know he’s not! And I don’t want some fake future version of him who’s going to disappear as soon as I figure out how to put you back in your own fucking timeline, so don’t fucking touch me! I don’t care how much alike you are, you’re not him!”

He must have been gathering up his papers as he spoke, because before the echoes of his last words have faded he stomps out into the hall, swinging his backpack over his shoulder and stalking toward the entryway. He pauses to shove his feet into his boots, wrestling the laces angrily from their knots, and then all at once he catches sight of Song Lan at the other end of the hallway and freezes. Xue Yang’s expression is fierce, vehement, beautiful in its fury, and perhaps more vicious than Song Lan has ever seen it before. He has no idea why it gives him the sense that he’s about to burst into tears.

“But—you hate me,” Song Lan says numbly. It’s all he can think to say.

Instantly Xue Yang’s face shutters. “Oh, fuck you,” he says; and then he yanks the front door open, storms out of the house, and slams it loudly behind him.

Song Lan feels like he stands there for an unreal age, the world warping and twisting around him; but in truth it cannot be more than thirty seconds at most before Xingchen comes down the stairs, dressed in his pyjamas and still towelling his hair dry. “Was that Xue Yang?” he says. “Did he leave? What happened?”

Song Lan cannot imagine how to answer him. “Ask Zichen,” he chokes out, and pushes his way past Xingchen up the stairs.

Xue Yang doesn’t show up the next morning. Song Lan waits in the living room, feeling sick to his stomach, and wonders if he’s ruined the only chance they have of getting Zichen home. He tries sending Xue Yang a text; but the only reply he gets is a terse fuck off before being summarily dismissed. Xue Yang doesn’t even do him the courtesy of leaving him on read: he ignores his messages entirely.

“I think he just needs some space,” Xingchen says gently. “He’s been texting me a little. Updates on the talismans.”

Xingchen has, presumably, gotten the details of last night’s argument from Zichen; Song Lan doesn’t know, and didn’t ask. He’s miserable with confusion. “Has he said anything else?”

But Xingchen only shakes his head. “No, just that.”

That does suggest that Song Lan hasn’t condemned Zichen to be stranded in their timeline forever, which at least loosens one of the several dozen knots in his stomach. But it does nothing to resolve the nauseating tangle of his personal situation. “I don’t know what to do,” he says. “I haven’t known what to do since—since Zichen-ge told us about everything. None of this makes any sense.”

The look Xingchen gives him then is unreadably neutral. Song Lan has never seen that particular expression directed at him before, and he finds he doesn’t much care for it. “Which part?” Xingchen says. “That you might want to date us? Or that we might want to date you?”

Song Lan does not miss the way Xingchen has grouped himself in with Xue Yang; it sets his head into a whole new whirl of confusion. “The other night,” he finds himself blurting out. “When you were—in the office. You told him you wanted to pretend. What did you mean?”

Xingchen doesn’t say anything for a moment; then he sighs and rubs his forehead. “I thought you might have heard that,” he says. “You know what I meant. Is it really so unbelievable that I might want the future he told us about?”

Song Lan has no idea how he feels. He’s dizzy, spinning between the knowledge that Xingchen wants him and the dawning revelation that he wants Xue Yang, too. Almost unconsciously he tips forward, cupping Xingchen’s cheek in one shaking hand. Xingchen closes his eyes into it and leans forward. His lips are parted, begging to be kissed.

“I didn’t know,” Song Lan says, stricken. “I always thought—you were being polite, you were letting me save face—Xingchen, how long?”

“Always,” Xingchen whispers. He is so unbearably lovely. “I’ve known since the moment I met you. But you don’t like to be touched, and I wasn’t—you’re so important to me, Zichen. I didn’t want to ruin things.”

Song Lan thinks of all the ways he has let Xingchen closer than anyone else—partnering with him, moving in together, intertwining their lives so thoroughly that their names are never seen without each other’s—and all the ways he couldn’t let him close enough. “I’ve loved you for years,” Song Lan says. “I’ve wanted—Xingchen—”

Xingchen sways towards him, and Song Lan, his heart in his throat, reciprocates. But before their lips can touch Xingchen puts a hand on his chest, bringing them both to a stop. “No. I’m sorry,” he says: as gentle as he can, but nonetheless implacable. “I’m so happy to hear you say that, Zichen, I really, really am, but—I can’t. Not if it would mean you’d want me to give up Xue Yang.”

A horrible lump swells and bursts in Song Lan’s stomach. He drops Xingchen’s cheek like he’s been scalded. “What do you mean, give up? Give up what?”

“We’ve been…,” Xingchen starts, and then trails off uncertainly. “We’re not dating, if that’s what you’re asking.” It’s not especially reassuring. “But I was… lonely. I didn’t know if you wanted me, and I thought he wanted to keep things casual. But even if he didn’t love me, he was a friend, and hooking up with a friend made me feel a little less alone.”

Song Lan’s world comes crashing down around him. To think that he has loved Xingchen this long, has wanted him so desperately, and Xingchen would have returned his affections anytime he asked—to know that he went instead to someone else, someone who he never thought he had a real chance with either, someone who has as good as confessed to being in love with Song Lan—as well? Instead? He has no idea. And now Xingchen won’t accept his feelings if it means the loss of Xue Yang, even though they’re not dating, and he thought Xue Yang wasn’t in love—

“So is he not, then?” he finds himself saying. “Keeping things casual?”

“Well… I don’t know for sure,” Xingchen says quietly. “It would make certain things make sense. But I haven’t had a chance to talk to him about it since what Zichen-ge told us.”

Song Lan’s insides have gone hollow. He wants to put his face in a pillow and scream. He wants to smash all the plates in the kitchen. He wants to walk out the front door in nothing more than what he has on him, and keep walking until he dies of exposure. He doesn’t do any of that. Instead he grits out, “So what am I supposed to do now?”

He doesn’t expect Xingchen to have a real answer for him, but it’s Xingchen: of course he does. He gives Song Lan a long, considering look, and says, “I think you need to figure out how you feel about Xue Yang.”

That’s the question, isn’t it? Song Lan has no idea how he feels about Xue Yang. Before yesterday he would have said that, attraction notwithstanding, they hated each other—as simple as that. Now, the mere implication that Xue Yang wants to date him has turned his world on its ear. And the fact that his potential response is now also tangled with his feelings for Xingchen certainly isn’t helping. He can’t make the pieces fit, has no idea how to even think about it; but he has the unwholesome suspicion that if his emotions were actually as straightforward as he’d always believed, Xue Yang’s almost-confession wouldn’t have thrown him into such turmoil.

He can’t talk to Xingchen about this: normally he’d be the first person Song Lan would turn to, but this time he’s too invested in the outcome—has wanted them to get along for years, and would be sincerely happy now at only one conclusion. Xue Yang, obviously, is right out. And all Song Lan is doing on his own is spinning in fruitless circles, like a panicked horse churning wet earth to mud.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—he currently has a fourth option.

Zichen takes it in stride when Song Lan asks him to talk, setting down the book he’s been borrowing and following him into his bedroom. Song Lan shuts the door behind them, and watches helplessly as Zichen moves through the space like he knows it: because, of course, he does. He runs his fingers along the bookshelf, looks at the photos Song Lan has on his bulletin board, picks up the lucky cat desk toy Xingchen gave him to rub his thumb over its head. “I have more of these now,” he says, almost idly. “Xue Yang started getting them for me.”

Song Lan says nothing, swallowing around the sudden lump in his throat.

Zichen stares at the cat for another moment, then sets it down with a sigh. “It’s hard to believe we were ever this young,” he says, and turns his eyes up to look at Song Lan. “That’s what you wanted to talk about, right? My relationship with Xue Yang?”

He’s stopped slipping up and using a pet name. Perversely Song Lan finds he doesn’t like it: Xue Yang’s name had been so comfortable in Zichen’s mouth, and now it sounds awkward and strange. “How did you know?” he says. “That he was in love with you? I always thought he hated me. He’s just… so…”

Zichen laughs, soft and fond. “He’s prickly. Yeah,” he says. “I’m not going to try to explain why, it’s personal, and you’ll learn it from him if you decide to pursue this. But he’s… he has good reason to be defensive. To expect the worst of people.”

“He’s not like that with Xingchen,” Song Lan finds himself saying—plaintive, almost petulant. Zichen just gives him a look. He doesn’t need to say anything: there are many ways in which Xingchen is exceptional, both for them and for Xue Yang, and Song Lan knows that very well. It was an uncharitable complaint.

“I thought he hated me for ages too,” Zichen says. “As far as I can tell from talking to Xingchen, our histories are identical right up to the point where I came back in time. So everything you feel about him, everything you know—that was me, too.”

“Then how did it happen?” Song Lan says. So far this is not doing much to help him make sense of things. “I just—I don’t get it. If you’d come back and told me you were dating Xingchen, that—I still might not have believed it right away, but at least it would have made sense. But Xue Yang is—he likes making me angry. He does it on purpose.” Zichen opens his mouth, and Song Lan cuts him off to add, “And don’t tell me it’s just because he likes me. He’s not some kid on the playground yanking on my pigtails.”

“It’s not that,” Zichen says. There’s a twist to his mouth that suggests he’s biting down a laugh.

“Then what?” Song Lan says, abruptly exhausted. He drops to a seat on the side of his bed, staring up at Zichen in helpless confusion. Does it even matter what he says? What explanation could he give that would possibly make a difference?

Zichen leans back against the desk, one hand folded across his chest and the other playing with his necklace, and just considers him for a long moment. His familiar face is thoughtful and solemn. “You can’t measure his actions by how you’d behave yourself,” he says finally. “He doesn’t mean the same things by them.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Well, like—the flirting,” Zichen says. “You think he’s making fun of you when he hits on you like that. I know you do, because I did. But what if he means it?”

“He doesn’t mean it,” Song Lan says tiredly. He’s not sure anymore if that’s actually true, but it’s a rote response: it’s what he’s been telling himself for at least two years. It’s always stung. “He just does it because it gets a rise out of me. Nobody makes stupid jokes and—and propositions like that if they’re actually serious.”

“No. You don’t make stupid jokes and propositions like that if you’re actually serious,” Zichen says. “You couldn’t imagine doing that unless you wanted to piss someone off. But he’s not you. What if he means it?”

“Then—” Song Lan begins, and has to stop. He remembers all the times Xue Yang has raked his eyes hotly down his body, has smirked at him and made some comment on his clothes; all the times he’s speculated on his sex life or joked about his dick; all the times he’s called him cut, or handsome, or hot, dismissed out of hand because Song Lan was sure he didn’t really believe that. His head is spinning. “Then he’s been hitting on me since the day we met.”

“Uh-huh. And?”

“And—I’ve been brushing him off all this time,” Song Lan says, horrified, as something snaps into place and his entire history with Xue Yang takes on a new perspective: like he’s suddenly found the trick to seeing a stereogram in 3D for the first time in his life. If his relationship with Xue Yang is not one of deliberate provocation and justified response, but of overtures made and summarily rejected—and Song Lan has declared so often, so casually even, that Xue Yang clearly doesn’t like him—god, did he think Song Lan was making fun of him? All he’s ever wanted is for Xue Yang to take him seriously, to treat him like a person who actually matters. Is it possible Xue Yang has wanted the same from him all along? Song Lan winces. “No wonder he always seems like he’s pissed at me.”

“Yeah,” Zichen says. “Which, for the record, is not exclusively your fault. He’s not exactly meeting you halfway either. But—yeah.”

Song Lan’s extremities are prickly and numb. All at once he becomes aware that his cheeks are burning. He has to put his face in his hands. “He has offered to suck my cock so many times,” he groans. “He was serious?”

“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Zichen says, not sounding particularly sorry at all.

“Oh my god,” Song Lan says quietly, and then spends the next thirty seconds not thinking about anything that isn’t calming his racing heartbeat.

“Okay,” he says, once he thinks he can speak without going into hysterics. He takes his face out of his hands. “Okay. So… I guess. Is that why—um. He and Xingchen,” he says awkwardly. “Because Xingchen actually believed he was sincere? They’re sleeping together, so Xue Yang is nice to him?”

“Maybe,” Zichen says. “Xingchen’s always been better at that kind of thing than we are. But also, it’s just… Xingchen. It’s hard not to be nice to him.”

That’s fair. “But Xingchen said—he thought Xue Yang just wanted something casual.”

“Yeah, well,” Zichen says, with a soft huff of laughter. “Better doesn’t mean he always gets it right. Xue Yang’s good at putting up a front, even when he’s getting what he wants. Maybe especially then.” He shrugs. “And so is Xingchen, in his own way. Sometimes they talk past each other.”

“What do you mean?”

Zichen just shrugs again. “Xue Yang doesn’t like being vulnerable,” he says. “Xingchen has a tendency toward self-sacrifice. They’re not always great at voicing when they want something.” His mouth quirks into a half-smile. “Neither are you, for that matter. It’s not exactly a recipe for easy romance.”

That stings a little, mostly because it’s true. “I notice you didn’t say we that time,” Song Lan says.

“Oh, you are definitely worse at it than I am,” Zichen says. “My boyfriends have been working on me for six years now.”

He’s still fiddling with the charm on his necklace—has been, in fact, for this entire conversation. Abruptly Song Lan remembers that Xingchen had seemed to think it was significant: he asked about it, that night in the office, and Song Lan had forgotten it entirely in the wake of everything else. “What’s that necklace?” he says. “You keep playing with it whenever you talk about them.”

Zichen’s hand stills for a moment, and then he forces his shoulders to relax. “Yeah, it’s… Xingchen got it for me,” he says. “It makes me feel close to them.”

Unexpectedly Song Lan is swamped by a wave of yearning. He swallows. “Can I see it?” he says.

He expects Zichen to take it off and pass it over; but instead he removes his hand from the charm and steps closer, leaning down to let him look. The necklace is short, sitting against his collarbones right at the base of his throat. The cord is black leather, sturdy and smooth. The charm is simple and very solid: it’s shaped like a crescent moon, with a little sword woven through the horns to create a closed loop. The cord is bound around the blade, just below the hilt.

A horrible suspicion hits Song Lan all at once. “Is that—that looks like a collar,” he says in a rush. “When you say Xingchen gave it to you—”

Zichen is very near his face. His lip quirks in a little smile. “Yeah,” he says. “You can see here, actually,” he adds, and tugs on the cord to bring it around his neck. The clasp at the back is a solid bar of metal, with only the thinnest seam separating each side; the black eye of a tiny keyhole stares damningly back at Song Lan. “I can’t even take it off. Xingchen has the key, seven years in the future.”

With no warning Song Lan is underwater. His ears are ringing; he can’t seem to get a full breath. For all his nearness, Zichen feels unfathomably far away. “Oh,” he says. His voice echoes in his head. “Oh, I—but I can’t do that, can I? I’m not—”

“Hey. Easy,” Zichen says. “Take a deep breath. Come on, inhale… exhale… there you go—”

Song Lan isn’t sure what difference breathing will make, but he does as he’s told, and after a few moments the sensation of drowning retreats to a manageable distance. He stares up at Zichen, mutely helpless. His eyes are glued to the charm on his collar.

If this is what Xingchen wants—if this is what it costs to have a real relationship with him—then it’s entirely beyond Song Lan’s reach. This isn’t a price he knows how to pay.

“I’d forgotten how much it freaked me out when Xingchen first suggested it,” Zichen is saying. “Zichen. Song Lan. Hey.” He snaps his fingers a couple of times in front of Song Lan’s face, and abruptly he comes into focus. “You’re fine, I promise. You can absolutely do this.”

“But—” Song Lan begins, and then gives up immediately, because Zichen already knows. It’s not as though he’s unfamiliar with kink as a concept—he’s toyed with it a little, with long-ago boyfriends or just in his fantasies—but that kind of permanent power exchange has never even been on his radar. “I don’t even like being handcuffed,” he says miserably.

“Yeah, well,” Zichen says. Heat is spreading across his cheeks. “They’ll change that for you too. Seriously, I didn’t think I could do it either. But actually, it’s… it’s one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done.”

“I don’t understand,” Song Lan says. His eyes keep skipping between Zichen’s face and his collar. “I don’t know how to submit, I’m not—”

“You’ll learn,” Zichen says. “And also, you’re… very wrong about that. You know plenty, trust me.”

For a very long moment Song Lan just blinks up at him, and eventually Zichen sighs and scrubs a hand over his face. “Can I—will you let me try something? I can show you.”

“Um—okay?” Song Lan says. He’s not entirely sure what he’s agreeing to, but he’s utterly certain he can trust his older self to be careful of his bruised emotions. Zichen has been nothing but kind to him, soothing him when he needs to be soothed and pushing when only a push will do—almost like he thinks Song Lan is someone he needs to protect. So if he thinks it will help…

“Okay. Thank you,” Zichen says. His voice is very soft. “Tell me if there’s a problem, alright? You can stop me anytime you want.”

And then, before Song Lan has truly had the chance to process the implications of that, Zichen slides a hand into his hair, tightens it into a fist, and hauls his head firmly back.

Song Lan nearly chokes. He’s had partners put their hands in his hair before, but no one ever pulled it like this. It’s not like having it yanked in a fight; instead Zichen’s hand so close to his skin distributes the pressure until it overtakes nearly half his scalp, sparkling and hot, almost but not entirely unlike pain at all. Without meaning to his eyes flutter closed, and his lips part around a low moan.

“Yeah,” Zichen says, quiet and satisfied. “I thought so.”

Two of his fingers nudge against Song Lan’s bottom lip; instinctively he opens his mouth, and seamlessly they slip inside, pushing down onto his tongue. Song Lan almost chokes again in his haste to close his lips around them; one of his hands comes up, curling helplessly around Zichen’s wrist. Zichen adjusts his grip on his hair, bending his head back even further until his only option is to collapse gently down onto the bed. Zichen climbs over him, pinning him at the hips with his weight, and drags his fingers—now slick with spit—out of Song Lan’s mouth. His hand settles instead around the base of his throat, right where a collar would sit, pressing down just enough on his windpipe that his heartbeat kicks up a notch in simultaneous terror and desire.

“What did I tell you?” Zichen says. “You know how to do this. We always did. I know you can’t see it yet, I couldn’t either, but… god, it’s so obvious in retrospect.”

“I don’t—what are you—” Song Lan says. His brain is going fuzzy around the edges; Zichen isn’t squeezing his throat enough to restrict his airway at all, but still he feels like he can barely breathe. He keeps expecting his dislike of touch to rear its head, but it never comes. Is it because it’s Zichen, or just because he can’t quite seem to think? Why are his thoughts slipping away from him so fast? Why hasn’t he moved? He could surely fight Zichen off if he really wanted to—so why hasn’t he done it?

“You know you do everything Xingchen tells you to?” Zichen says. “You don’t even have to think about it.” His hushed tone is nearly hypnotic; Song Lan is acutely aware of how shaky his breathing is. “When you’re stressed, your first instinct is to do something helpful for somebody else. You’ve made food for Xue Yang twice since I’ve been here, and he’s only eaten at the house three times. You don’t even expect to be thanked for it—you just do it because you want to do good.” His voice drops then, low and warm, and hooks its claws deep into Song Lan’s brainstem. “You want to be good for me now, don’t you?”

All at once Song Lan is burning up. An involuntary whine tears itself from his throat. “Gege,” he groans. He doesn’t think about what he’s saying. Desperately he arches his hips against Zichen’s; until this moment, he hadn’t even known he was hard.

“Oh, that’s,” Zichen says. His eyes are wide and startled, his cheeks flushed with heat. He still has one hand around Song Lan’s throat; the other pets over his hair, traces down his temple, rubs along the cut of his cheekbone. “Okay, yeah, that’s—that’s working for me. That’s it, didi, let me show you what you can do.”

“Please,” Song Lan says, canting his chin up, and—like he can read his mind, like he knows exactly what he needs—Zichen leans down and sweetly kisses his mouth.

They’re doing something wrong, Song Lan thinks: he ought to feel like they’re doing something wrong. But instead it feels like something slotting home, like some part of him was missing all his life and this is what has finally made him whole. He parts his lips to his older self without hesitation, inviting him in, aching to swallow him up. Zichen makes a soft sound, acknowledgement and desire; his tongue nudges against Song Lan’s with a hungry edge to it.

Song Lan loses track of how long they kiss. He is dazed and gasping when Zichen pulls away, thoughtlessly chasing after his mouth, only to find himself unexpectedly brought up short by the hand on his throat. Zichen squeezes his neck once in warning, then meets his eyes with an expression like a blunt instrument.

“Here’s what we’re going to do,” he says. “In a minute I’m going to let you up. You’re going to take all your clothes off, then lie back down on the bed and put your hands on the headboard. You’re going to keep them there until I say otherwise. Got that? Say ‘yes, gege,’ if you understand.”

Song Lan swallows hard. “Yes, gege.”

“Good boy. Up you get.”

Zichen climbs off of him and stands up, and Song Lan is abruptly dizzy with too much air. It takes him a second to remember where his limbs are; then he scrambles to his feet, fumbling to strip himself bare. Zichen watches him, eyes dark and unreadable, and slowly unbuttons his shirt. Finally Song Lan manages to stumble out of his underwear and get himself back onto the bed; he grabs hold of the headboard with something like relief.

Zichen is shirtless when he joins him on the bed, but hasn’t taken anything else off. He kneels between Song Lan’s legs, movements much more elegant than his were; Song Lan has no idea how he’s still so composed. Zichen considers him for a long moment, his eyes tracing over his body with solemn attention, and then a smile flits across his lips. “Would it be conceited of me to say you look good?” he says. “It’s true, though. I don’t usually get to see what it looks like from this side of things.”

Song Lan has never paid that much attention to his appearance; to have himself—his older self—calling him attractive is more than he knows how to deal with. “What what looks like?”

“Submission,” Zichen says softly. He spreads his hands against Song Lan’s thighs, drags them up to his hips and folds them around the dip of his waist. “You, laid out so nice like this, doing everything I tell you.” He glances up; amusement flickers through his eyes. “You’re turning red, didi.”

“I’m—I just,” Song Lan says. His head is spinning. He isn’t following this at all. “What do you want me to do?”

“Yeah, there it is,” Zichen says, and flashes him a look that could almost be described as smug. “Just remember you said that later, when you’re telling yourself you don’t know how to submit.”

Song Lan doesn’t have the opportunity to respond to that. Zichen digs his fingers into his sides, bending over him and biting down on his pectoral; Song Lan gasps, arching up into his mouth. But Zichen presses him back onto the bed. “No, you stay there,” he says. “Show me you can take what I give you.”

Song Lan shivers. He can’t tell if he’s too hot or too cold. “Okay,” he says.

“That’s not what you say,” Zichen reminds him.

It takes him a second to put his thoughts in order. “Oh,” he says. “Yes, gege.” His voice feels very small.

Zichen doesn’t say anything more. He takes his time exploring Song Lan’s body. He’s surely familiar with all of his tells already, must know exactly how he’ll respond—is so alike to him that they’re more than brothers, more than twins—but he doesn’t act like it, testing his every reaction as though it’s all brand new. He ghosts his fingertips over his ribs, kisses his way down his sternum, pinches and twists at Song Lan’s nipples until he’s jerking with the effort to keep himself still. Zichen leaves trails of sensation all over his chest and belly; by the time he sits back on his heels, in prime position to take his dick in hand, Song Lan is so hard he’s aching.

But Zichen doesn’t wrap his fingers around his cock. Instead he studies him critically for a moment; and then, evidently satisfied with what he finds, slaps Song Lan hard on the inner thigh.

Song Lan shouts. It’s more surprise than pain, but there’s pain there too, shimmering brightly over his nerves. The impression of Zichen’s hand sits hotly on his skin for several long seconds before it begins to fade. Song Lan blinks his eyes open—he doesn’t remember closing them—and stares up at Zichen. His heart is in his throat; he has no idea how he would speak around it, even if he did have any idea what to say.

Zichen doesn’t hesitate. He slaps him again, just as hard, on the other thigh this time.

Song Lan gasps, jolts, does his best not to move. “Gege—” he chokes out, and then has no idea where to go from there. He can feel his cock drooling precome. He had no idea pain could feel this good.

“Hush,” Zichen says. “Let gege take care of you.”

Song Lan nods frantically. There are tears gathering in the corners of his eyes. He tips his head back, just trying to breathe through it. He’s still holding tight to the headboard of the bed.

Zichen makes a low, soothing noise, and then starts hitting him in earnest.

It’s not vicious. It’s not aggressive. Instead there’s a kind of rhythm to it, a loving implacability that lands in perfect time with the pounding of Song Lan’s heartbeat. Zichen’s hands must be smarting by now; but he doesn’t slow, ruthless and relentless as he works his way the length and breadth of Song Lan’s thighs. Soon his skin is all but glowing with heat, the sharp sting of each slap smoothing away into the whole with a bright flare of warmth. He lets it bear him where it wants to, and for the first time in as long as he can remember the inside of his mind goes softly, peacefully quiet.

Zichen decides, eventually, that he’s had enough. Song Lan comes back to himself with the sound of his older self’s voice in his ears, murmuring a stream of reassuring nonsense. “There you go. That’s it. Good boy, you did so well,” Zichen says. “Your legs are so red, look at you. You’re perfect.”

It’s an effort to get his eyes open. Song Lan tips his chin against his chest, staring down his own body and for long seconds unable to parse what he’s seeing. Zichen is right. His thighs are brilliant with the mark of his hands, and as Song Lan looks a new kind of pain prickles over his skin: goosebumps, rippling to life in the cool air of the bedroom now that Zichen is no longer hitting him. It’s strange, and intimate, and so unexpectedly good, and—god, he can’t think, he can barely even breathe—it’s all too much, and he’s still so deliciously, achingly hard—

“Okay. Yeah,” Zichen says, nonsensically. “I’ve got you, didi, I’ll look after you.”

He gets up from the bed then, breaking contact with his legs, and an awful sound wrenches itself from Song Lan’s lungs. But Zichen is only peeling himself out of his sweatpants, is only digging around in the nightstand drawer where Song Lan keeps his lube, and then he’s crawling back onto the bed and over Song Lan, now gorgeously, gloriously naked. He’s so comfortable in his own skin; it’s more attractive than Song Lan knows how to handle, and he wants it desperately for himself. Zichen straddles his tender thighs, pinning him securely against the mattress, and squirts some lube into his palm. He’s hard too, his cock flushed dark and nudging up against Song Lan’s, exactly identical in every way, and he is—it’s—

“I didn’t realize how big it is,” Song Lan finds himself saying. It sounds humiliatingly stupid the second it’s out of his mouth, but it’s true: he’s rarely ever taken photos of himself, has seen his cock only from above, and had always privately assumed his exes—few and far between—were exaggerating to flatter him. But now, with Zichen sitting over him like this, faced with the reality of taking it himself, the size of their dick is almost alarming.

Zichen, to his credit, does not laugh at him. “I hadn’t either,” he says. “But Xue Yang would not shut up about it.” The lube in his hand, apparently, is not destined for Song Lan: instead Zichen reaches behind himself, exhaling a moan as he presses his fingers into his ass. He smiles faintly at Song Lan’s astonished look. “I’m not going to make you take me, didi,” he adds. “You don’t like bottoming yet, and that would be a lot to start with.”

Yet, Song Lan thinks. He doesn’t like bottoming yet. His mind is in a heated whirl, and without meaning to he lets out a low whine. Is Xingchen going to—is Xue Yang going to—

“Besides,” Zichen says, and wraps his hand—firm and slick and so, so good—around Song Lan’s cock. He wipes the remains of the lube along his shaft, then shuffles forward to position himself over him. “There’s nothing that says submitting has to mean getting fucked.”

Zichen sinking onto his cock is a long, slow process. Song Lan is wild with impatience before he’s halfway through, and Zichen evidently takes pity on him. “You can let go of the headboard,” he says. “Just hold onto me, go on, that’s it—”

“Gege,” Song Lan all but sobs, clutching Zichen to him. He had forgotten about the position of his arms; they’re tingling painfully now, numb all over with pins and needles, and he cannot stop himself from clawing at Zichen’s legs. Zichen sucks in a breath at that, grinding down another half inch. Song Lan groans helplessly. “Please—please, please, gege, please—let me, please—”

“It’s okay, didi, you’re okay,” Zichen says, and tips forward to kiss him again.

They both feel it when Zichen finally bottoms out; the noise they make is nearly identical. They rock together, slow at first and then increasingly frantic, until Zichen is practically bouncing on him, a high and desperate sound punched out of him on every thrust. Song Lan is beyond even that. He’s been so fiercely on edge for so very long, and sex has never felt like this before. He’s so feverishly hot that he’s almost shocked his skin isn’t steaming.

Somehow, despite everything, his orgasm still surprises him. It hits like a landslide, slamming through his body and burying him all at once, until he is crushed beneath the weight of it and heaving painfully for air. His cock throbs; he spills himself into Zichen’s ass in violent pulses. Zichen practically keens at that, clenching around him until Song Lan is nearly shivering with overstimulation. He doesn’t stop moving, grinding down on Song Lan’s cock even as it’s going soft inside him. Song Lan’s breath hitches. Still he finds he cannot speak.

“Fuck, fuck, I’m so—” Zichen says. “Give me your hand, I need to—”

Fumbling, Song Lan wraps his fist around Zichen’s dick, making a ring of his fingers and allowing him to fuck into his hand. His cockhead is slick with precome already; Song Lan smears it down his length, squeezing and rubbing, letting instinct take over. It’s easy, it’s so easy, he knows exactly what he likes, and in moments Zichen is moaning and shaking against him, and Song Lan has never wanted anything so fervently as he wants to get him off—

“Oh,” Zichen gasps, and comes all over his stomach in a sticky, shuddering spatter.

Song Lan whines in the back of his throat as Zichen slumps down on his chest, his heavy breathing slowly evening out. He has no idea what to do with himself: his head is still a haze of the confused desire to please, only now he’s done it, and he doesn’t know what comes next. For lack of any better course of action, he loops his arms around Zichen’s shoulders, pulling him in against him.

That was evidently the right call, because Zichen exhales a soft sigh and nuzzles into his collar, relaxing fully into his hold. “Good. That was good,” he mumbles, mouthing a kiss over Song Lan’s scapula. “You learn so fast, didi, I’m proud of you.”

All of a sudden Song Lan finds himself blinking back tears. “Gege,” he whispers. The thought that rises to the surface of his mind, absurdly, is a wistful one: what would it have been like, he wonders, to have had an older brother for real? He has felt so safe under Zichen’s control; and that praise, in his familiar low voice, soothes something hard and spiky in his heart that he had never before known was there. For a short moment he almost regrets that they will have to send Zichen home.

“I’m so proud of you,” Zichen says again. “You did so good.” Carefully he pushes himself upright, kissing the corner of Song Lan’s mouth and swinging his legs down over the side of the bed. Without meaning to Song Lan reaches after him, but Zichen only catches his hand and presses it back down. “It’s okay. I’m just getting the wet wipes.”

Song Lan keeps them in his nightstand, in the same drawer as the lube. Zichen tidies himself briskly, then comes back to the bed to wipe Song Lan clean with tender hands. It makes Song Lan acutely aware of the outlines of his body, in a much more comfortable way than that sensation usually presents itself. There is something so strangely grounding about having another person here to gently scrub the sweat away, to handle all the logistics of cleaning and settle him back into his skin, muscle by muscle and joint by joint.

He’s nearly dozing by the time Zichen is done, and finds himself reaching for him instinctively with a sleepy little sound when he lies back down beside him. Zichen laughs softly, running a hand through his hair and scratching lightly at his scalp. “I can really see why Xingchen likes this,” he says, kissing Song Lan’s temple. “So. Still think you don’t know how to submit?”

“Shut up,” Song Lan says, but there’s no heat behind it. He’s still floating pleasantly in the lassitude of a really good orgasm, not to mention that strange and blissful daze that had come over him starting all the way back when Zichen had first pulled his hair. He’ll have time for processing fundamental revelations about his sexual proclivities later. Right now, he doesn’t have the brainpower.

“Whatever you say, didi,” Zichen says.

He teases very dryly, which comes as no surprise. Song Lan hides his face in the pillow before Zichen can comment on his blush. “Leave me alone, haven’t you done enough,” he grumbles, with a mouthful of cotton pillowcase. “Yes, alright, maybe I could—I could wear Xingchen’s collar.”

Zichen doesn’t say anything to that. When Song Lan finally summons up the courage to peek out of the pillow at him, there is a smile on his lips that he has never seen in his own mirror. The look on his face is quietly incandescent, suffused with a fierce and unflinching joy. Song Lan is left blinking at him in awe.

“I’d like that for you,” Zichen says. “I really would. You deserve to know what it’s like.”

Song Lan doesn’t know if he has ever been moved enough by anything to smile like that, and it occurs to him that he wants to be quite badly.

“What about Xue Yang?” he blurts out.

Zichen raises one eyebrow mildly. “What about him?”

“I just—I mean—it is Xingchen’s collar, right?” Song Lan says. He can’t believe he’s asking this voluntarily; this conversation has led him to far stranger places than he ever expected it to go. “So where does Xue Yang fit into all this? He’s part of it too, right?”

But Zichen only smiles again, pressing a chaste kiss to his mouth. “He’s part of it too,” he agrees. “I’ll leave it to you to figure out how.”

Song Lan wakes up the next morning—now alone in his bed—to a loud pounding from downstairs. Blearily he rolls over to check his phone: it’s 6:39 a.m., and he has three missed calls and a series of increasingly unhinged texts from Xue Yang. With a groan he heaves himself out of bed, stumbling into his sweatpants.

Xingchen gets there first. Song Lan hasn’t even made it to the stairs by the time he pulls the door open and Xue Yang spills into their house, a hurricane in human form. “Finally!” he huffs, throwing down his jacket and backpack and kicking off his boots with two heavy thumps. “Didn’t you get my texts? Why the fuck didn’t you answer your phone? I’ve been out here for like five minutes already!”

“Xue Yang, it’s not even seven,” Xingchen says. His voice is blurry and soft, as it always is for the first half hour after he wakes up. “Is everything okay? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Xue Yang says. “Read your fucking texts, Xingxing. I solved it. I’m a fucking genius.”

There is a thoughtful pause. “Have you slept?” Xingchen says.

“Oh my god, who cares!” Xue Yang says. “Don’t you get it? I’ve got the answer. We can send him back!”

Zichen comes out of the office then; unlike Xingchen or Song Lan, he’s dressed, wearing or carrying everything he had with him when he first arrived. Wordlessly he rests a hand on Song Lan’s back, then passes him and starts down the stairs. Song Lan follows on silent feet, reluctant to put himself in Xue Yang’s line of sight. The roiling mass of knots has woken up in his stomach again, now complicated by the knowledge that he has surely been misreading Xue Yang’s intentions all this time.

“Are you really sure you’re in any state to be doing feats of experimental cultivation?” Xingchen is saying gently. “You need to rest.”

“Nah, fuck rest,” Xue Yang says. He turns a baleful eye on Zichen as he makes his way into the entry. “I want him out of here. We’re doing this.”

“Compromise,” Zichen says, apparently unperturbed by Xue Yang’s blatant animosity. “I want to go at least as badly as you want me gone, but I can’t have you collapsing in the middle of that. You’re eating breakfast first.”

For a moment Xue Yang looks like he’s gearing up for a fight, but he must see some sense in what Zichen is saying, because he deflates just as fast. “Fuck you. Fine. But be quick about it.”

“Sure,” Zichen says, and then glances back at Song Lan, a tiny, nearly unnoticeable smile hovering around his mouth.

Xue Yang is resolutely not looking at Song Lan. They are, it seems, entirely avoiding the topic of his furious departure from the house two nights ago. There is a swelling urge within Song Lan to do something for him, as though to somehow make it right. The look on Zichen’s face is subtle, but very knowing. To his horror, Song Lan can feel himself blushing.

“I’ll make some eggs,” he mumbles, and flees to the kitchen.

Later, after they’ve eaten, Song Lan watches Xue Yang set up in the living room and tries to consider him with fresh eyes. Xingchen was right: it’s very clear he hasn’t slept, and he keeps swinging between open hostility and an almost manic self-satisfaction. Two days ago, Song Lan would have dismissed that as nothing more than his ego combined with his resentment at having to use his brilliance in service of someone he dislikes; but now, with Zichen’s insights echoing in his ears, he’s sure there must be more to it. And so he studies Xue Yang as he runs through a haphazard explanation of what he’s doing, as he drags the coffee table out of the way to create an open space in the middle of the floor, as he starts chalking out a complex array on the hardwood—as for the first time in a very long time, Song Lan tries to truly look at him.

And he finds—once he’s gotten his own annoyance, and impatience, and preconceived notions out of the way—that reading Xue Yang is breathlessly simple.

He does have an ego: that part is unmistakeable. But at the same time, he’s right to—he really does know what he’s doing, has an answer for every question Xingchen poses, can give a complex explanation of talismanic theory even as he’s sketching out the intricate characters of an array, without faltering or smudging his work even once. He’s proud of what he can do, of the knowledge that Zichen is relying on him and of the skill that will be the solution to their problem. But at the same time he flinches subtly every time Zichen looks at him for too long, and avoids getting near enough to touch him even when that means going the long way around. And it’s not hatred that Song Lan sees in the angry set of his mouth: it’s hurt.

Zichen, Song Lan thinks, has created just as much turmoil in Xue Yang’s heart as his own—and Song Lan’s inability to face up to the truth of Zichen’s relationships has only made it worse.

It sits uneasily on his mind. Xue Yang isn’t meant to be dragged down by anything: he’s obnoxious and irrepressible and doesn’t care what anyone thinks. Except that, maybe, he’s always cared what Song Lan thinks; and has only pretended not to because that was less painful than accepting that Song Lan didn’t think of him at all.

Only—that’s not true either, is it? Song Lan thinks about Xue Yang constantly. For one thing, he’s never been able to avoid noticing how pretty he is. And then there are the countless times he has stormed out of a night-hunt, or a social event, or the sparring gym where he just happened to cross Xue Yang’s path, seething with irritation and unable to keep from obsessing over how flippant and dismissive he was. Would that have even mattered to him at all, if he didn’t on some level want Xue Yang’s attention on him? He doesn’t think it would.

“Song Lan,” Xue Yang snaps. “Hey. Focus. What do you think, is this gonna work?”

Song Lan blinks at him, kneeling on the floor next to his handiwork; at the completed array, inscrutable and enormous; at the long and technical explanation of talismanic principles that Song Lan didn’t understand and wasn’t absorbing. Xue Yang is gorgeous. He’s brilliant. He is so far beyond Song Lan’s level on this. “You’re asking me for a second opinion?”

Xue Yang just rolls his eyes at him. “For fuck’s sake, were you even listening?” he says. “Nobody’s ever done this shit before, of course I want a second opinion. Well?”

“The theory seems sound,” Xingchen says slowly. “Is there any way to know for sure without just… trying it?”

Xue Yang shrugs. “Not really,” he says.

Across from them, Zichen is keeping his thoughts to himself, glancing speculatively between Song Lan and Xue Yang; Song Lan will receive no assistance from that quarter. Helplessly he says, “You know I don’t understand this stuff.” He has no idea what else he could say.

Right away Xue Yang’s expression twists. “Fuck you, then,” he says. “If you can’t even be bothered to pay attention—”

“No,” Song Lan says, too fast, too loud. It’s remarkable, he thinks, how easy it became to understand Xue Yang the moment he actually started trying. “I meant this isn’t my area. I don’t know if this is going to work. But if you know it’s going to work, then I trust you to get it right.”

Xingchen is staring at him in open astonishment. Zichen only smiles. Xue Yang looks as shocked as he did the first time Zichen expressed a similar sentiment. For a moment his face is almost vulnerable; then it hardens again, and his hands clench into fists. “The hell has gotten into you?” he says. “Are you fucking with me? What the fuck do you mean, you trust me?”

“Nothing,” Song Lan says, floundering again. “Just—you know what you’re doing. You’re good at this kind of thing.”

But that only seems to make Xue Yang angrier. “Yeah, I fucking know I am,” he snaps. “Since when do you?! You’ve never taken me seriously before—what the fuck are you playing at?”

“Nothing!” Song Lan repeats. His temper is rising: he’s trying so hard to look at Xue Yang with new eyes, but it’s impossible not to fall back on the pattern of years, especially when Xue Yang is making no effort to do him the same courtesy. “Why would I have taken you seriously? I thought you hated me! You kept trying to piss me off on purpose! Of course I brushed you off!”

Xingchen makes a startled sound, but Xue Yang speaks over it. “Oh, and now you know better?” he jeers. “Don’t bullshit me, Song Lan.”

“God, why are you so infuriating?” Song Lan says. Even when he’s trying to tell Xue Yang he respects him—oh, for fuck’s sake, he respects him—Xue Yang still has to turn it into a confrontation. Is this all their conversations are ever destined to be? “I’m not bullshitting you. I mean it.”

“Fuck off,” Xue Yang says. “You were brushing me off before I ever said shit to you. God, I fucking hate assholes like you who think you’re better than everyone else.”

Song Lan remembers it differently—but then, Song Lan also thought that all of Xue Yang’s overtures were taunts. Now, abruptly, he is utterly confident of his understanding. “No,” he says. “That’s not your problem with me. You couldn’t care less what I think about everyone else. You think I think I’m better than you.”

For another brief second there is a flicker of vulnerability on Xue Yang’s face; and then he surges to his feet and stalks over to the couch, grabbing Song Lan by the collar of his shirt. “Don’t you fucking dare tell me I’m wrong,” he snarls. “Not when you’ve been shooting me down since the day we fucking met. Not when you treat me like I’ve got a disease every time I get near you.”

Song Lan has to fight not to wrench himself away. He thinks of how Zichen has never once let Xue Yang rattle him, draws in a breath, and firms up his spine. “Has it ever occurred to you,” he says, and lifts one hand to wrap it around Xue Yang’s wrist, “that the way you flirt is insane?”

The noise that Xingchen makes then is not quite surprised, and not quite a laugh. Zichen, for his part, practically snorts. Whatever Xue Yang expected him to say, that clearly wasn’t it. He blinks. “What?”

“You could consider acting like you like me,” Song Lan says. He’s almost surprised at how patient it comes out. “Instead of like you’re specifically trying to make me uncomfortable. I know you know how, you flirt with Xingchen all the time. You’re never like that with me. So why—” His voice cracks; he has to clear his throat. “Why would I have believed you actually meant it?”

“That’s not,” Xue Yang says, and then: “What the fuck do you mean by that?”

Unconsciously Song Lan finds himself tightening his grip on his wrist. “I never thought you were serious,” he says. Unexpectedly he feels like he might cry. “If I’d known—I wouldn’t—I thought you were making fun of me.”

For a very long moment Xue Yang just stares at him; and then with a convulsive, nearly violent motion, he shakes Song Lan by the collar. “What the fuck, Zichen!” he says. “All this time I’ve been thinking you hated my guts, and you were pissed because you thought I didn’t mean it? What the fuck. Why would I have been making fun of you?”

Song Lan has no answer. He doesn’t remember why he first flinched from Xue Yang: only that he couldn’t conceive of someone like him ever truly wanting someone like Song Lan. That Xue Yang was trying to get a rise out of him was the only explanation he’d had. It was one he’d never questioned.

Suddenly Xingchen is at their side, his fingertips resting on the back of Song Lan’s knuckles. “Zichen,” he says, his voice suffused with joy. “You really mean that?” Song Lan almost startles: all at once he is wrenched back to an awareness of their audience. Xingchen he doesn’t mind, since Xingchen is part of this too; but Zichen—he’s lived it before, and knows everything Song Lan is thinking. Song Lan has already embarrassed himself enough in front of him. He doesn’t need to play out a new version of this drama in front of his older self.

“Can we,” Song Lan says, and has to tear his gaze from Xue Yang’s face: his eyes are wide and dark and wary and hopeful, and Song Lan is going to drown. “Do we really have to do this right now? Let’s get Zichen-ge home first, and then we can—”

He expects Xue Yang to fight him on it, but he had underestimated his enthusiasm for getting Zichen out of their lives. “Don’t you dare fucking think I’m through with you,” he says. He drops Song Lan’s shirt, then rounds on Zichen. “And as for you—”

Zichen is already on his feet; he’s picked up his tac vest, and is slinging it around his shoulders. “I’m not arguing,” he says. “You can figure this out without me. I want to go home, I miss my boyfriends.”

Xue Yang just snorts, but it doesn’t seem quite as derisive as it did before.

With the array already drawn, there’s very little left to do. Xue Yang pulls a stack of paper talismans out of his backpack and goes flipping through them, checking his work one last time; then he distributes them around the array in a precise arrangement, clustering them at the cardinal directions. “These ones first, then those, then those, then those,” he orders, pointing at each grouping in turn. “If this works, it’s going to put you back in the exact spot you left from, but I have no fucking clue if it’ll be at the same moment, or that moment plus the length of time you’ve been here. Or it could all go horribly wrong and you could end up literally anywhere. Good fucking luck.”

Zichen looks entirely too sanguine about that possibility. “Do you think it’s all going to go horribly wrong?” he says.

“Nah. I’m a fucking genius,” Xue Yang says. “Oh, here.” He fishes another pair of talismans out of his pocket and slaps one of them down in Zichen’s waiting hand. “Activate that when you get home. I have no fucking clue if this’ll work either, but if it does, this other one will go off too. And then we’ll know.”

Carefully Zichen folds the talisman in half and tucks it into a pocket on his tac vest. “Thank you, Yang’er.”

Song Lan winces, but Xue Yang doesn’t blow up at him. Instead a complicated expression steals over his face, and he darts a glance between Zichen and Song Lan. Song Lan looks back at him, feeling like he’s been cracked open. Zichen raises his eyebrows and opens his arms; and after another moment of agonized indecision, Xue Yang slams into him, throwing his arms around his waist and pressing his face into his chest. With a pleased sigh, Zichen pulls him close, tucking his head down against Xue Yang’s hair.

“I’m glad you were here to help me,” he says.

“Shut up,” Xue Yang mumbles into his shirt, but it sounds suspiciously like he’s holding back tears. “Get the fuck out of here and stop fucking up our lives.”

Zichen kisses the top of his head, lets him go, and turns to Xingchen. He barely has to reach for him before Xingchen is swarming into his embrace, throwing his arms over Zichen’s shoulders and leaning their foreheads together. For a long moment they just hold each other. Finally Xingchen says, “Take care of yourself.”

“Don’t worry,” Zichen says. “I’ve got my Xingchen for that.”

Xingchen laughs and tugs on Zichen’s collar. “I suppose you do. This is a day collar, right?” he says. “Any chance you know where I got it?”

Zichen smiles, tipping his face down to whisper in his ear. Xingchen listens, poised and attentive, and then casts an impish glance at Song Lan. Song Lan ducks his head and tries very hard not to meet Xue Yang’s eyes, which are now fixed intently—and speculatively—on him. He’s not remotely ready for that conversation yet.

“Lovely,” Xingchen says. “Alright, if you won’t let me tell you to take care, then I’ll just say—be good.”

Zichen’s lip twitches. He catches Xingchen’s jaw one-handed and guides him into a kiss; Xingchen makes a surprised sound, then reciprocates enthusiastically. Eventually Zichen pulls back with a little nip, a smile still softening his mouth. “You’re good, but you’re not my Xingchen,” he says. “You’re still about seven years short of being able to handle me. Get some practice and maybe you’ll catch up.”

“I will,” Xingchen says, and steps away.

When Zichen turns at last to him, Song Lan finds there is very little that either of them needs to say. They reach simultaneously for each other’s hands, and Song Lan squeezes Zichen’s fingers in gratitude as Zichen gives him one last solemn look over. Finally Zichen draws him into a hug, kissing him gently on the forehead. “You’ve got this,” he says, almost too soft to hear.

“I know,” Song Lan says, just as low. “Thank you.”

Xue Yang bullies Zichen into the centre of the array, placing himself on its southern edge. “Song Lan, take north. Xingchen, west. And you,” he says, pointing at Zichen; abruptly Song Lan realizes he can’t remember ever hearing Xue Yang address Zichen by name. “East. You’re last. And don’t forget that signal talisman.”

“I won’t,” Zichen says. “Are we ready?”

“Wait,” Xingchen says abruptly. “How do we know it’ll work? What if it goes wrong? You could end up anywhere, you might not even end up back in your timeline, let alone your time—”

“Xingan,” Zichen interrupts: soothing, calm, and totally certain. “It’s okay. I’d rather take the chance than be trapped here forever. I just—I need to go. If it doesn’t work…” He shrugs, flashing a little smile. “I’ll just have to find another Xue Yang and try again.”

“Ah, shit,” Xue Yang says. “I should have made you a copy of my sketches.”

“Too late for that now,” Zichen says easily. “I’m not waiting. Send me home.”

Xingchen just looks at him for a long moment, distress marring his beautiful brow; and then he turns, for some reason, to Song Lan. Song Lan stares back at him, unable to guess what his expression is conveying: he has no idea how he feels himself. But, whatever it is, it seems to help. Xingchen takes a deep breath, then looks back to Xue Yang. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Fucking finally,” Xue Yang says. He catches Song Lan’s eye with a jerk of his chin. “You first. As much qi as you can manage.”

Song Lan activates the cluster of talismans in front of him, pouring his spiritual energy into them. One in particular seems to be drawing him in, so he focuses on that one, dumping power into it in a growing golden stream. He can feel Xingchen doing the same with the talismans on his right, and then Xue Yang, across the array from him. At last Zichen lights up his own, and the rush of energy starts to hum, whirling faster and faster until the air itself is vibrating like a plucked string. Sweat stings in Song Lan’s eyes. He can barely breathe. Pressure bears down on him, the headache that signals spiritual strain threatening to blossom to life in his temples. And then, just when he thinks he can’t take it anymore, Zichen smiles. He disappears in a shower of red sparks.

Abruptly the tension snaps. Song Lan staggers back, tumbling down against the nearest armchair, and feels more than sees Xue Yang and Xingchen doing the same. When his vision clears, there is no sign of Zichen anywhere, and the talisman papers have all burned to ash. The red chalk that was used to draw the array has likewise vanished: instead the pattern is marked into the floor, perfectly smooth, dark on golden-brown like an unfathomably intricate burl in the hardwood.

“Well, he definitely went somewhere,” Xue Yang mutters. He pushes himself upright, tossing his last remaining talisman down on the floor. “Now we just wait to see if this goes off.”

“What if it doesn’t?” Song Lan says. He finds he can barely look at Xue Yang; to give himself something to focus on, he stares at the talisman instead.

“It might not mean anything,” Xue Yang says. “Our timelines are split. He could be going to another universe, for all I fucking know. Maybe he’s already activated it and there just isn’t any correspondence between us.” He shrugs. His tone of voice is casual, but there’s something almost forlorn about the movement. “Either way, there’s nothing else we can do.”

“I hope he’s made it,” Xingchen says. He, too, is staring at the talisman. “Can you imagine how lonely it would be to be lost like that? Surrounded by your people, but none of them the ones you know? No wonder he was willing to risk it.”

Please, Song Lan thinks. Please.

The watch the talisman in silence for a minute, then two. After a while Xue Yang starts shifting restlessly, but he doesn’t walk away, or tell them there’s no more point in waiting. Another couple of minutes pass. Song Lan stands up, unable to stay in his seat, but then just hovers there and keeps watching. Xingchen fiddles with the hem of his t-shirt. The silence stretches on. Song Lan wonders if they ought to give it up.

The talisman flashes to life, a vivid, blinding red, and then just as quickly flares out and burns to charcoal.

Xue Yang does not so much leap to his feet as throw himself bodily upright. “Holy shit, it worked! It fucking worked! Goddamn, I am a motherfucking genius!”

“Yang’er, you did it!” Xingchen cries. He crashes into Xue Yang and whirls him around, in a laughing, jubilant embrace. “He made it! You got him home!”

Song Lan feels like a puppet with its strings cut. He has no idea what to do with his hands. The relief of it all—of knowing it worked, that Zichen is safe, that he’s been reunited with the people he loves—is so intense that it almost makes him giddy. He is brilliant with possibility, fizzing and ebullient, like he’s been filled up with bubbles of champagne. He feels like he could do anything.

Xue Yang and Xingchen spin to a stop. Simultaneously they turn toward Song Lan—Xue Yang fierce with delight, Xingchen practically glowing, both of them instinctively including him in their happiness. Song Lan feels something click into place like a key in a lock. This, he thinks. This is where he belongs. This is what he wants to be building: a life where they reach for each other, instead of closing each other off. A life where, when he looks for new depths in someone he assumed didn’t have them, he finds a multiverse of richness and colour. A life where the man he has loved for years has so much love of his own to give back that it spills out over everyone in their orbit.

A life where he makes Xue Yang breakfast, and Xue Yang uses it to do impossible, magnificent things.

“Zichen?” Xingchen says. He’s still breathless with joy. “Are you okay? You look kind of shaken.”

“Yeah, I’m okay, I’m—” he says, and then gives up on words. He catches Xue Yang’s wrist, tugging him towards him. “Yang’er.”

Xue Yang sucks in a sharp breath. “What did you just call me?” he says.

“You know what,” Song Lan says, and cups his jaw, and pulls him into a kiss.

For a moment Xue Yang is frozen against his lips; and then he hurls himself at Song Lan, throwing his arms around his neck and slamming their bodies together. He practically tries to climb him, and quickly the kiss turns vicious, desperate, all tongue and teeth and ragged, panting heat. Song Lan was the one to initiate it, but now he can barely keep up. It’s all he can do to clutch Xue Yang close to him and hold on.

Cool fingers brush his hair back from his face: Xingchen, pressing in at their side, bracing Song Lan with one careful hand and gentling Xue Yang with the other. “Oh, look at you,” he murmurs. “Both of you. You look so good together.”

Oh, Song Lan thinks deliriously. That’s where Zichen learned to do it. He was channelling Xingchen.

Xue Yang bites down on Song Lan’s lower lip, and tips his head to look at Xingchen without letting him go. Song Lan whines in the back of his throat, has to close his eyes to keep himself together, and Xue Yang laughs against his mouth. He kisses him again, quick and playful. “Wow,” he says. “I really didn’t believe it until now.”

“I meant it,” Song Lan says. He is all but trembling with how much he meant it.

“Yeah, I guess you fucking did,” Xue Yang says. “You don’t make any fucking sense, you know that?”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Song Lan returns. He’d be more annoyed about it, except Xue Yang hasn’t let him go in the slightest, one hand curled in the back of his shirt and the other playing with his hair.

“Enough,” Xingchen says. He’s beaming at them both. “We’ll figure it out together. All of us.”

That makes Xue Yang twist around, staring openly at Xingchen. “Wait,” he says. “Are you—”

“Yang’er,” Xingchen says, and leans in to kiss his cheek. “If you haven’t figured out by now that I’m in love with you, you’re not nearly as smart as I thought.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Xue Yang says weakly. “I’m—okay. Yeah. What about Zichen?”

“Yes, what about Zichen?” Xingchen says, and turns that beautiful smile on him. He lifts his hand, brushing his thumb over the swell of Song Lan’s cheek; Song Lan sighs, tipping his face into it, and presses a kiss to Xingchen’s palm.

“Oh,” Xingchen says softly: a low, almost helpless sound. For a moment he only blinks at Song Lan, and then all at once he is kissing him too, lush and wet and wanting, like a rainstorm after years in the desert. Song Lan’s knees nearly give out; only Xue Yang still holding him up keeps him on his feet, and oh, isn’t that an interesting thought? Xingchen’s mouth on his is demanding, nowhere near as violent as Xue Yang’s was but somehow just as powerful. Song Lan is going to be swept away on the tide. He doesn’t know how he’ll survive it.

Finally Xingchen pulls away, breathing roughly into the space between their lips. “Wow,” he says, an echo of Xue Yang. “Zichen-ge had the right idea. I’m going to put a collar on you.”

“Xingchen,” Song Lan says helplessly. He ducks his head.

“Can I help?” Xue Yang says. His eyes are bright, fixed keenly on them both.

Xingchen considers, a perfect smile curving his gorgeous mouth. “Maybe,” he says finally. “If you’re very good. I might even let you hold the leash.”

Song Lan can feel himself flushing a dull red, but all the same he can’t stop the embarrassed delight from tugging at his lips. “Don’t I get a say in this?”

“No,” Xingchen says. “Isn’t that the point?” His smile softens then, and he takes Xue Yang’s hand, smoothing the other through Song Lan’s hair. “What do you say, sweetheart? Want to be ours?”

Song Lan looks between them—at the serene contentment on Xingchen’s face, and the hungry, naked hope on Xue Yang’s. He thinks about his older self, the assurance with which he inhabits his own skin, and the tender, indulgent compassion with which he had stripped Song Lan’s illusions away to set him on a better path. He recalls the radiance that had lit Zichen’s face from within when he had spoken of his own submission. He thinks about the peace he had felt in submission himself, and the desire tugging at him even now to look after these two stubborn, wonderful men inexplicably holding onto him.

Song Lan slides his arms around them both, and tips his head down against theirs. “Yours,” he agrees. It’s the easiest choice in the world.