Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After several months, Wei Ying had concluded that, contrary to expectations, a zombie apocalypse was not actually a great environment for a necromancer. Sure, he could control some of the zombies--they were close enough to dead for his power to work--but only some of them. Not all of them. Not enough of them to do more than make a bubble around himself so he didn't join their ranks.

Not enough to keep everyone else safe.

Certainly not enough to raise a zombie army to either protect or destroy the world, depending on which rumour was floating around.

The problem was that most people he met didn't understand that. In the early days, he hadn't been too careful about telling people what he was, and as soon as people heard the word necromancer, everything inevitably went wrong. They either clung to him for protection he couldn't reliably provide, or they blamed him for the entire mess and tried to hunt him down.

It didn't matter which option they picked; the end result was always the same: people dead, zombies everywhere, Wei Ying forced to flee with whatever supplies he could shove in his backpack before the mob caught him. Once or twice, he barely managed to grab the backpack before running. There had been some hungry weeks as he tried to gather scraps and get himself far enough from the last disaster to feel he could stop running for a while.

He didn't announce what he was any more. There were rumours flying everywhere about the Yiling Laozu, and it had taken Wei Ying a while to realise that was him. Depending on the source, the Yiling Laozu was either a heartless monster who refused to use his gifts to protect the weak, or he was a heartless monster who was raising the dead to carve out his own empire in the zombie-infested wastelands.

Somehow social media hadn't collapsed when half the rest of society did--federated social media had a lot to answer for--and there were competing conspiracy theories about the Yiling Laozu's role in the origin of the zombie virus. Wei Ying didn't find them as funny as he wanted to.

The zombies had nothing to do with necromancy. He hadn't even been in the same city as the first outbreak. He was a physics teacher, not a biologist.

Wei Ying hadn't even realised there was an apocalypse starting for the first couple of weeks. There were a few rumours about a new type of flu emerging in a city in the north west, but he'd been busy with exams and coaxing teenagers through lab assessments without accidentally blowing anything up or inventing a new branch of physics. Rumours about a new flu were less important than making sure none of his students ended up with singed eyebrows or sent into pocket universes.

(It had happened once, with a kid who didn't know he had powers, and Wei Ying had spent a panicked afternoon working out what happened, rescuing him, and then working out how to explain it to the school authorities without giving away the whole "some people have powers" thing. The general consensus in the powered community pre-apocalypse was that it was safer if nobody knew who didn't need to know. The pocket universe kid needed to know. The school did not. The school wouldn't have believed the kid if they were told the truth, and the kid needed guidance on how to use his new power rather than mental health evaluations. Wei Ying had contacts, the kid transferred to a new school, and the authorities had a neatly typed report that they could all pretend was the truth that didn't mention pocket universes once. It was fine.)

So yes, Wei Ying hadn't known about the impending apocalypse until it was too late, but that didn't stop rumours about the involvement of the Yiling Laozu in the origin of the zombie apocalypse, because it didn't matter to anyone except him. It was easier to blame a mysterious figure with a scary name and power than accept it had been an ordinary group of humans and an accident that caused the catastrophe.

The world learned about powers shortly after learning about zombies, and they learned how utterly useless powers were against a zombie apocalypse almost as fast. Nobody cared that powered people were as vulnerable as anyone else. That their powers were small and nothing like the superhero cartoons. They cared that powers couldn't stop the coming storm, and therefore they hated the powered people almost as much as the zombies.

It took nearly four weeks for the new plague to reach the city he'd called home for the last few years. It took less than a week for Yiling to collapse.

By the time Wei Ying met his first zombie, he'd seen enough of them on shaky phone videos to know what he was looking at, but it was still shocking. So he protected his students as much as he could. He went out scavenging with them, helped them set up a safe base to call home, and then he left when the rumours about him became a danger to them. He left spectacularly, so that nobody could possibly think his students and the remnants of their families were harbouring him, and he ran for a full week before he dared to slow down.

He met the Wens three months later. The enclave they were building was the first place he'd stayed in for more than a few days and it was the respite he'd sorely needed. Wen Qing had a healing power that couldn't fix zombies or prevent someone turning after they were bitten, but she repaired Wei Ying's broken collar bone in a few minutes. He didn't hide his necromancy and they didn't expect anything from him that he couldn't give.

It was a good few weeks. He protected their scavenging teams as much as they would let him. He worked in the vegetable garden they were trying to establish. Supply chains had broken down early and until they were re-established, looting was the only way to find food. Looting for seeds and farm equipment was a better long-term strategy than venturing further and further afield to find undisturbed caches of preserved food, the Wens decided. Wei Ying discovered how much he enjoyed burying his fingers in the rich, crumbly earth and for a while, he thought their little enclave would survive until the world righted itself.

It couldn't, of course, because the rumours about what he could do--and Wen Qing's younger brother--started to circulate and that brought a mob to their door. They brought zombies trailing behind them, the awful sounds carrying on the wind and turning the angry mob into a panicked one.

In the space of a few minutes, Wei Ying found himself escaping through a hole sliced in their fencing with a toddler clutched in his arms.

"I can't take care of a child!" he'd shouted as Wen Qing handed A-Yuan to him and shoved A-Yuan's stuffed rabbit in his backpack.

"You can protect him," she'd told him fiercely. "We can't."

"But--"

"Shut up and go. We'll find you again if we can."

He went.

They were on foot for a while, never staying anywhere for more than a night or two until they were far away from the enclave. Carrying a child limited Wei Ying's options in some ways--he wasn't the only one going hungry and A-Yuan didn't sob quietly--but it was also easier to hide what he was.

A too-thin young man with a small child in his arms wasn't exactly welcome, but only the cruellest people refused to shelter them. That young man couldn’t possibly be the dangerous Yiling Laozu. He had a baby.

The fragile bubble Wei Ying could hold around himself when zombies attacked was small enough for one frightened toddler, particularly if he strapped that toddler to his chest. He could control zombies enough to slow them down, muddle them so he could kill them if there weren't too many, or escape if there were. There was no sense reanimating the dead when they were already walking around, he just had to control enough of the already-walking ones to create a barrier around them.

Whatever fueled the zombies, it spread by bite and the only way to guarantee they couldn't rise was by destroying their brains. Gunshots and decapitation were equally effective. Watching fiction come to undead life wasn't as entertaining as anyone pretended it would be.

Wei Ying had met enough bullet-riddled zombies to know that most people weren't able to make a clean headshot under duress. He'd also worked out early in the apocalypse, before he left his students in their safe haven, that ammunition would quickly run low and needed to be conserved. Three of his former students and several of their parents were excellent shots.

Wei Ying found a sword. It meant stepping within arm--and therefore biting--range but he was a necromancer. It worked out.

His sword and his backpack of essentials were the only things he hadn't lost so far. Somehow, the electricity grid was functional in a lot of places and the cell towers were still powered. He always had several fully charged battery packs on him and he'd maximised power consumption efficiency on his phone so it could last for days on a single charge. He had chargers that were compatible with anything that could provide a current and he never passed up a chance to recharge everything. He carried tools for minor repairs to electronics and a couple of water bottles that he tried to always keep full. A-Yuan's stuffed bunny became an essential.

With his phone, Wei Ying could receive occasional messages from his former students, so he knew they were okay. He hooked into a network of mutual aid groups, which gave him access to information and shelter as he travelled. He tracked how the world moved from an immediate crisis mode into a more sustained survival mode. Maybe one day survival would shift to rebuild.

He didn't hear from the Wens.

He thought about looking up people from his old life, before he was a physics teacher, but he'd burned most of those bridges long before the world caught fire. It was better to keep putting one foot in front of another, never looking back.

A-Yuan was a quiet little boy with an infectious smile. He didn't smile often at first and he cried into his stuffed bunny every night, but he slowly recovered. Travelling and meeting new people every few days became normal for him. He was always shy when they first arrived in a place, and sometimes they had to leave before he'd grown confident enough to leave the safety of clinging to Wei Ying's leg, but he charmed nearly everyone they met with his big eyes and polite manner.

A couple of times, they found places where Wei Ying almost thought they might be able to settle. Friendly places with good defences and other children for A-Yuan to play with. It never worked out. Someone always noticed that zombies didn't behave quite right around Wei Ying, and Wei Ying could never just let someone die if he could stop it.

He picked up an electric motorbike a couple of weeks after setting out with A-Yuan. It was in a showroom and someone had already looted the viable electric cars. Wei Ying holed up for a few days and tinkered with it until he had a bike that could connect to anything with a current and travel 200 km on a single charge while towing a light trailer. Or further and faster if he had to ditch the trailer.

He installed a small, secure seat in front of his own, reasoning that A-Yuan would be safer between his arms than riding pillion. They put any supplies they could afford to lose in the trailer, stuffed the rest in his backpack of essentials, and A-Yuan shrieked with joy as they set out.

It was easier with the bike. Fewer people approached them on the road and they could afford to travel further to find safe shelter. Only one person tried to steal the bike and Wei Ying discovered he could use his sword on the living as well as zombies, if he was defending his child's best chance of survival.

Their meandering route around the country took them towards the ocean eventually. It was almost a year since the world fell apart and Wei Ying hadn't found anywhere that looked like a safe permanent home for them both. Leaving A-Yuan with strangers was impossible.

He wasn't even aware that he'd got so close to the ocean until he turned a corner and recognised the road ahead. His eyes burned for a moment and he slowed the bike to a stop until his eyes stopped blurring.

"Xian-gege?" A-Yuan said. "Why stop?"

Wei Ying scrubbed his eyes clear and took a deep breath. He dropped a kiss on A-Yuan's head. "It's pretty, isn't it?"

A-Yuan made a thinking sound. "Mn?"

Wei Ying chuckled. "I lived near here once. A long time ago. If we keep following this road, we'll get to the ocean! I used to do that sometimes with...with friends."

"Oh." A-Yuan seemed to think about that. "Ocean. Go to an ocean. What's an ocean?"

It was as good a direction as any. Maybe they could find a boat. Maybe if they floated around on the ocean for long enough, the world would become a safe enough place for them. Wei Ying kicked the bike into life again.

Mountains rose on the horizon as they rode, shrouded in mists that Wei Ying didn’t have to close his eyes to remember. It would be easy enough to turn the bike towards them, but he didn’t. They kept heading for the ocean.

According to the GPS on his phone, they were less than fifty kilometres from the coast when he decided to stop for the night. There was a farmhouse that seemed secure and it still had power. The electricity map promised that power would stay on here until at least tomorrow morning. The Zombies, Track! app had the area marked green and Wei Ying hadn’t seen anything bipedal--living or dead--all day. There was a commune a few kilometres away, but dusk had already fallen and even the friendliest commune wouldn’t open its doors after dark.

The farmhouse should be safe enough.

Wei Ying set up his usual motion detectors and brought the bike into the farmhouse. He got the phone charged before he plugged in the bike, just in case, and pulled the trailer up close to the house. A-Yuan helped him carry their sleeping bags and some food into the house and they set up a cosy little den.

They ate a hot meal for the first time in a couple of days and A-Yuan was asleep almost before his head hit the pillow. Wei Ying curled around him and their precious backpack and checked a few things on his phone before he dropped into a light sleep.

The motion detectors went off as Wei Ying was clearing up the congee he’d given A-Yuan for breakfast. Adrenaline sent his heart pounding and his stomach rolling as he dropped the plastic dish he was drying and dove for the backpack. A-Yuan was holding his stuffed bunny and they couldn’t afford the precious seconds to transfer it to a more secure place.

“Hold onto Bunny, okay?” Wei Ying said as he scooped A-Yuan up in his arms.

He unhooked the bike’s chargers and threw them into his backpack, dropped A-Yuan into his little seat, cursed as his fingers fumbled the clips a couple of times before he managed to buckle A-Yuan in.

An arm punched through a window. Wei Ying swore more fluidly.

He climbed onto the bike and wheeled it towards the door. They would have to abandon the trailer, their supplies, everything except what he carried on his back. It had been so long since he’d last set out with nothing, but he could feel the weight of dead flesh moving outside the house. He couldn’t control it for long enough to repack the trailer. Escape had to be their priority, he’d figure out the rest later.

A-Yuan whimpered softly and Wei Ying took a deep breath.

He unfocused, hummed a tune under his breath, and reached.

Dead flesh, freed from its soul, responded. Wei Ying's stomach rolled again, sweat beaded on his forehead, but he held on and forced the zombies outside the door into stillness. He leaned forward over A-Yuan and yanked the door open.

"Close your eyes, baobei," he said, trying to keep his voice warm and reassuring.

"Mn!" A-Yuan said, a little muffled, and Wei Ying allowed himself a precious moment to glance down.

A-Yuan was holding on tight to his stuffed bunny, face tucked down into its soft fur. Good enough.

Wei Ying turned the bike on, relieved to see the indicators flash into life. He tightened the straps on his backpack and gripped the handlebars tight. He started whistling. Outside, the nearest zombies shuffled back a few steps at his command. It was reluctant, sluggish, nothing like commanding a normal corpse, but they obeyed him and he cleared a path to wheel forward out of the door.

His heart sank. Never mind abandoning the trailer, there were so many zombies out there that he didn't know how they'd get out alive. So many zombies. More than he'd seen in one place for months.

The Zombies, Track! app was wrong. This was a red area. Was there a colour beyond red? Black? That's what this area was. Black and fucking lethal. If they survived, he was going to write to the creators and complain because people relied on their app and it was so fucking wrong.

The zombies nearest to them were still quiet, frozen, and Wei Ying moved forward a few feet. Further away from them, the zombies were confused. Something was wrong, but there wasn't enough intelligence left in their undead brains to put anything together.

A zombie started moaning. Another joined it, and another. Wei Ying could feel A-Yuan shaking.

Nothing was trying to grab them yet. He gave a brief thought to going back to the house, but it wasn't defensible. Too many glass windows, a wooden door. They'd be overrun in a minute.

He moved forward a few more feet, still whistling. Reached for more zombies, but he was already stretched to the maximum. He couldn't control any more. One of the nearby zombies shuffled, took a step closer. Wei Ying could feel his control slipping.

One of them lurched forward to swipe at him and he felt dirty, clawed fingers scraping over his jacket sleeve. He yanked his sword out of the sheath across his back and decapitated it in one swift motion, but it was as though that was a signal. The zombies he couldn't control began moving closer, moaning louder, scenting something in the wind, and Wei Ying couldn't push the ones under his control away from him. Couldn't maintain the protective bubble under so much pressure.

He struck again and again with his sword, gaining a few feet here and there, but they were surrounded and he was shaking with the effort of fighting and whistling and trying to force his control onto new zombies each time he eliminated one. A-Yuan was sobbing, shaking, and Wei Ying's heart was breaking. It was all over. They weren't going to survive this and everything he'd done was for nothing. He should have left A-Yuan with one of the groups they'd stayed with. It was foolish to keep moving on when--

A shot rang out, loud even over the constant drone from the zombies. Another shot and another, the loud punch of shotguns and revolvers instead of the indiscriminate rattle of semi-automatics. People who knew the value of making every headshot count.

Wei Ying felt a burst of energy rush through him, the hope and adrenaline combining into an intoxicating high. He froze the zombies crowding in close and clung to the bike's handlebars with one hand so he could use his sword in the other as he kicked it into gear and charged.

They burst through the mass of zombies and Wei Ying was distantly aware of figures in white moving around him, fighting with guns and swords and even the odd guandao. They didn't matter; what mattered was getting A-Yuan safely away.

A-Yuan was wailing into his stuffed bunny now, a high-pitched sound that Wei Ying had to fight to ignore because they weren't safe. They'd never be safe.

Wei Ying lost track of everything except the fight around him, zombies appearing and disappearing under his sword or someone else's. A-Yuan was still strapped to the bike so he couldn't let go of it, but he couldn't find any openings wide enough to escape through. They needed speed to escape and he couldn't get it, not when there were living humans tangled in the fight.

There were other sounds filtering in now, shouts and commands, the low hum of vehicles. The white-clad figures were organised, Wei Ying realised, trying to herd the zombies into groups that could be dispatched more easily. He tried to weave around them and let them work, hoping they'd realise the man on the bike wasn't their enemy even though he had to look almost as filthy and blood-spattered as the creatures they were fighting.

A group of zombies broke away, stumbling into Wei Ying's path too late to swerve. He tried to anyway, felt the bike start to tip under him, and he put a foot down to keep the bike from falling entirely. A-Yuan shrieked and Wei Ying couldn't reach these zombies, he'd run out of juice and he couldn’t catch his breath. The bike was barely upright, he couldn't keep it that way and use his sword, it was over.

He curled forward over A-Yuan and screwed his eyes shut to brace against the pain.

It didn't come. Something cool and clean rushed over his head and the zombie cries abruptly cut off.

A hand touched his shoulder and Wei Ying looked up, straight into a pair of eyes he hadn't seen for thirteen years. Those eyes widened slightly in recognition.

"Wei Ying?"

For a moment, Wei Ying couldn't breathe. Lan Zhan. He was older, leaner, the last traces of teenaged softness melted away, but it was unmistakably Lan Zhan. Wei Ying had spent enough hours studying him, sketching him, annoying him into friendship and teasing him into rule breaking. Enough hours then thinking about him after that part of his life ended. He couldn't have forgotten Lan Zhan if he'd tried, and he never wanted to.

Lan Zhan's eyes flickered to the side and Wei Ying reacted on instinct, ducking away and allowing Lan Zhan to decapitate the zombie behind him.

"Go," Lan Zhan said, pointing.

There was a vehicle not far away, built like a cross between an armoured truck and a bus. It was painted white, the Lan school crest stencilled in pale blue, but it looked solid and impenetrable. The door at the back swung open slightly.

"I'll cover you," Lan Zhan said, stepping away.

Wei Ying opened his mouth to protest, but Lan Zhan's gaze flickered down to A-Yuan in front of him and Wei Ying understood. He nodded tightly and pulled the bike fully upright again. The lights flickered to life when he pressed the start button and relief made him dizzy for a moment.

No, not just relief. Exhaustion. He was all out of power and holding the bike steady was making his arms shake. Their escape was only a couple of hundred metres away, but it was over rough ground and he didn't have anything left in him to run. He kicked the bike into gear and shot away as fast as he could. Behind him, he heard gunshots and zombie moans suddenly cut off, but he didn't dare to look back.

He didn't stop until they almost collided with the armoured bus. The back doors swung open and hands reached down to pull him and the bike up. Someone unclipped A-Yuan and pushed the bike further into the vehicle. Wei Ying collapsed onto a bench, holding A-Yuan against his body as tight as he dared, feeling the way that small body shuddered and shook against him.

"It's okay, baobei," he murmured into A-Yuan's hair. "We're safe. They're friends."

The door opened again and several figures in white tumbled inside. Wei Ying searched and was relieved when Lan Zhan lifted his head and their eyes met.

Wei Ying nodded to him, offering a tight-lipped smile. Lan Zhan's face softened for a moment, and Wei Ying felt something inside release, fear draining away to be replaced by profound exhaustion. A-Yuan had already cried himself out and he was slumping against Wei Ying's chest in the soft way that meant he'd fallen asleep. Their bus rumbled into motion. Wei Ying let his head drop back against the wall and followed A-Yuan into sleep.

***

Wei Ying woke up when someone shook his shoulder. It was odd, because he didn't startle the way he usually did. Waking was a gentle thing, a languid surfacing from somewhere slow and safe, and when his eyes blinked open all he thought was "of course".

It was Lan Zhan's hand shaking him, Lan Zhan's eyes he met. Wei Ying smiled, warm and easy, and there was that softening in Lan Zhan's features again, as though he was smiling without moving his lips.

"Xian-gege?"

The sleepy contentment disappeared and Wei Ying startled upright, wincing as his backpack suddenly dragged at his shoulders and he realised the vague ache in the middle of his back was from something inside it digging into him. A-Yuan was standing just behind Lan Zhan, one finger in his mouth and a worried look in his eyes. His hand looked filthy, worse than the stuffed bunny clutched in his other arm, and Wei Ying tried not to worry about how many germs he was ingesting.

Their transport wasn't moving and Wei Ying realised he'd slept through the entire journey. He must have been asleep for hours, if they were where he suspected they were. Everyone else had left, it was just him, A-Yuan, and Lan Zhan.

He scanned quickly and found the bike, pushed against the solid metal barrier that separated them from the driver's cab. Some of the worry drained away on seeing it.

Lan Zhan's head turned, following his gaze. "I will make sure it isn't lost."

Wei Ying nodded. "Thanks."

He turned to A-Yuan and held out his arms, trying not to sound too pained when A-Yuan flung himself forward and almost strangled him in a hug. He ached everywhere, his head was pounding, several muscles were shrieking every time he moved or breathed, and his ankle was throbbing, but he held A-Yuan close for a long moment.

Lan Zhan's expression was unreadable. "Is he...yours?"

Wei Ying made himself smile. "Sure is, I birthed him with my own body."

A tiny frown appeared between Lan Zhan's eyebrows, and Wei Ying couldn't stop himself chuckling tiredly.

"Ah, Lan Zhan, you were always so..." he trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence. "A-Yuan, this is my old friend, Lan Zhan. Can you say hello?"

A-Yuan reluctantly stopped trying to strangle him and turned around. The finger was back in his mouth. Wei Ying really needed to clean his hands.

Scratch that, Wei Ying really needed to dump the entire child in a bath and burn his clothes, but he'd settle for being able to wipe A-Yuan's hands. Maybe if he could get A-Yuan a bath, Bunny could join him and then they'd both be slightly cleaner.

Lan Zhan didn't smile, but his features softened again and he held out a hand. "Hello, A-Yuan."

A-Yuan eyed the outstretched hand suspiciously. After a minute's thought, he took his finger out of his mouth and shook Lan Zhan's hand. Wei Ying fought down a fond smile at the way Lan Zhan's eye twitched on contact with the dirty, wet finger. To his credit, he didn't snatch his hand back, although he did surreptitiously wipe it on his trousers when A-Yuan released him.

“Can you stand?” Lan Zhan asked.

“Probably.” Wei Ying gritted his teeth against a groan as he put A-Yuan down to demonstrate. “See? No problem.”

Lan Zhan didn’t look convinced, but he was quiet as he led the way off the bus. A-Yuan held onto the hem of Wei Ying’s jacket as they followed him, Wei Ying only looking over his shoulder at the bike once before he remembered Lan Zhan’s promise. The air smelled sweet and clean when he hopped to the ground and helped A-Yuan down. It was a familiar sweetness, of green growing things and crisp mountain breezes, and he inhaled deeply.

When he opened his eyes, the trees and white gravel were so familiar, it made his heart ache a little.

The bus stood in a row with two others, all painted white, although one of them was scratched and dented. Several smaller cars were dotted around the carpark, all looking bulky in the way armoured cars did. A few trees had been cut down since Wei Ying was last there, ensuring a clean space around the carpark where nothing could sneak up and surprise anyone, and the fence was taller, but otherwise it was almost possible to pretend nothing had changed.

“This way,” Lan Zhan said. “You will require a medical assessment.”

Wei Ying tried to follow, but A-Yuan was hugging his leg, clinging like a small, dirty limpet.

“Buddy, you can walk,” Wei Ying said.

A-Yuan shook his head. Wei Ying sighed and scooped him up, feeling several muscles complain as he settled A-Yuan awkwardly on his hip. It would be easier if he didn’t have his sword and backpack on his back, but he wasn’t willing to leave those behind, even here. Not yet, not until he was sure it was safe. Bad enough that he was leaving the bike.

Lan Zhan waited for them and Wei Ying could feel his curious gaze but refused to meet it, focusing instead on his surroundings. At first glance, this was the Cloud Recesses he remembered from his schooldays. But as they walked, he noticed the changes: new fencing, sturdy gates, shutters ready to slam across doors and windows. Wei Ying silently approved. Multiple layers of defence, the ability to seal off sections before the entire place was overwhelmed.

“Fortress Cloud Recesses?” Wei Ying said.

“Cloud Recesses Safe Haven,” Lan Zhan replied.

“Yeah, that’s a better name.” Wei Ying grinned. “You can lock it down like a fortress, though.”

“It is a safe place.”

They stopped outside a building that had been a small infirmary the last time Wei Ying was here. They’d built onto it recently, but it looked as sturdy and protected as everything else.

“Second door on the left,” Lan Zhan said, leading the way inside.

Wei Ying nodded. His arms were screaming with exhaustion as he shifted A-Yuan to free one hand and knock on the indicated door. A muffled voice called out and he opened it to slip through, blinking when he saw the figure hunched over a desk on the far side of the room.

“Wen Qing?” he whispered.

She looked up and, for a moment, she was slack-jawed with surprise before her expression melted into a brilliant smile. She crossed the room in a moment and pulled him--and A-Yuan--into a brief, rib-crushing hug. That was followed up with a punch to the shoulder, which felt more normal, and Wei Ying realised he was smiling and crying at the same time.

“You--!” She seemed at a loss for words, so she dropped her gaze to A-Yuan and her smile turned warmer. “A-Yuan.”

The little boy was speechless, but he allowed Wen Qing to pull him out of Wei Ying’s arms and his arms wrapped around her neck in one of his strangling hugs. Wei Ying scrubbed the tears away from his eyes, feeling more welling up immediately, and he wasn’t embarrassed because Wen Qing also looked a little teary around the edges.

“Why didn’t you contact me?” he asked. “I was waiting.”

Wen Qing grimaced. “I lost my phone and I couldn’t remember your number. Your old social media profiles were dormant.”

“Yeah, after the Yiling Laozu rumours started, it seemed safer,” Wei Ying said.

“That’s unexpectedly sensible of you.”

“Hey, you entrusted an entire child to me and you’re surprised I can be sensible?”

“Yes.” Wen Qing carried A-Yuan over to an exam bed and clicked her tongue. “Over here, I need to examine both of you before we let you roam the compound.”

He endured her poking and prodding as patiently as A-Yuan, until she stuck a needle in the pad of his thumb.

“Ow!”

She squeezed a couple of drops of blood into a small plastic vial and released him to push the lid on.

Wei Ying sucked on the tiny wound. “What the fu--uh, heck--was that?”

Wen Qing did the same to A-Yuan’s thumb. He didn’t even whimper.

“A test,” she said, setting the vials aside. “Ninety-seven percent of zombie bites convert within five minutes.”

“How long do the other three percent take?”

“Up to forty-eight hours.” Wen Qing’s expression was grim. “That’s why outbreaks happen in the middle of compounds we thought were safe.”

“I’d know if I’d been bitten.”

“Really? Care to strip off and let me check? Because adrenaline can do things like make people fail to notice their broken collarbone or walk around carrying small children on a badly sprained ankle, so I’m not convinced you’d notice a bite.”

“There’s a difference between not noticing, and knowing you’ve broken your collarbone but not having time to do anything about it.”

“Really? And the ankle? What’s your excuse for that?”

Wei Ying’s ankle throbbed. Getting his combat boot off was going to be a bitch later, he could already tell.

“Does your test work?” he asked.

Wen Qing shrugged. “We’ve been using it for a month, here and a few other places, and it’s been accurate so far.”

“What happens if I test positive?”

“You get a choice. You can leave the compound or you can stay and be a test subject.” She shrugged. “If you leave, we’ll grab you after you convert, so it’s the same thing but you’re much more dangerous to everyone if you leave.”

“You’re experimenting on zombies?”

“Observing.” Wei Qing tilted her head. “Studying the conversion process. We don’t torture them, Wei Ying.”

“That’s very comforting.”

"I'm hoping we'll eventually be able to use what we learn to develop a treatment, maybe even a vaccine."

Wei Ying smiled at her. “You'll do it, I know you will.”

Her cheeks went slightly pink. “Not just me, there’s a few of us working on it in different places. But I think we’ve got the best chance of really understanding the process here. Between the zombies we’ve studied and A-Ning--“

“He’s here? Where?” Wei Ying grinned. “How many times has he been bitten now?”

Wen Qing pursed her lips. “It’s not a badge of honour.”

“Says you.”

“He’s out with a patrol,” Wen Qing said. “Congratulations, you’re not a zombie. Yet.”

She held up the tiny plastic vials. The liquid inside both was bright blue.

“Neat.” Wei Ying grinned, but sobered after a moment. “How many of you...?”

“Some.”

“Granny? Uncle Four?” Wen Qing shook her head and Wei Ying reached out to squeeze her arm. “I’m sorry.”

Wen Qing pressed her lips together tightly for a minute before she took a deep breath and shook him off. “I’m going to heal your ankle. For everything else, I prescribe several days of rest and lots of food. You look like a walking skeleton. At least A-Yuan is in better shape than you.”

She was as good as her word, healing his ankle and a tiny bruise on A-Yuan’s knee, but refusing to do anything for Wei Ying’s bruises and scrapes beyond cleaning the worst of the cuts and applying a few butterfly stitches.

“A-Yuan, do you want to stay with me for a while?” she asked when she was satisfied.

A-Yuan shrank closer to Wei Ying, his lip wobbling. A wave of guilt rolled over Wei Ying, but Wen Qing just sighed and looked understanding.

“You’re the only constant he’s had for the last few months,” she said. “I’m not surprised. Go on, someone will have your room assignment by now.”

A-Yuan hugged her again before they left, but he latched onto Wei Ying’s jacket hem as soon as she released him and Wei Ying shrugged.

Lan Zhan was waiting at the infirmary exit. There was a thin scratch down the side of his face that Wei Ying hadn’t noticed earlier, but he looked unharmed otherwise. Clean and tidy, in that way he’d always had and now felt so surreal in the middle of an apocalypse.

“Did you know Wen Qing was here?” Wei Ying asked.

A tiny frown appeared. “You know her?”

Wei Ying glanced down at A-Yuan. “Yeah. I stayed with the Wens for a while. It’s how I got A-Yuan. She's his cousin.”

Lan Zhan glanced down at the little boy, who was now crouching down and hugging Wei Ying’s knee tiredly.

“Ah.”

Wei Ying shrugged. “Looks like I’m keeping him for a while longer.”

He didn’t say that he wanted to keep A-Yuan forever, that the idea of giving him away to anyone else or leaving him behind was impossible, but there was a light in Lan Zhan’s eyes that he thought meant Lan Zhan understood anyway.

“Wen Qing said something about room assignments,” Wei Ying said.

“Mn.”

He had to pick A-Yuan up again and it felt worse than ever, all his muscles screaming so much that he thought he probably wouldn’t have noticed his sprained ankle even if Wen Qing hadn’t healed it. When he caught up, Lan Zhan gave him an indecipherable look and reached for A-Yuan.

Who let himself be transferred, and even wrapped one arm around Lan Zhan’s neck. Wei Ying gaped at him for a moment before hitching his backpack higher and deciding not to question it.

They walked along white paths, past familiar buildings made strange by their adaptations to the new zombie-infested world. There were a dozen questions Wei Ying wanted to ask, but he was too tired and the silence was nice. A-Yuan was nodding against Lan Zhan’s shoulder and Wei Ying was surprised to realise it was dusk already. It felt like only a couple of hours ago that the motion detectors had gone off.

They were on another familiar path when Wei Ying realised where they were going. He frowned. Ahead, a metal fence with an open gate had been added, but he recognised the bamboo gate behind it and, beyond, the garden and single-storey house. The fence looked electrified and the gate could probably be closed from a panel in the house. Wei Ying approved and felt another tiny bit of tension melt away even as he turned to Lan Zhan.

“This is the Jingshi,” he said. “It’s your home. We can’t stay here. There must be guest dormitories, there always used to be.”

Lan Zhan’s expression didn’t change. “We have to conserve space.”

“By invading your home?”

“Mn.”

The problem was that A-Yuan was half asleep in Lan Zhan’s arms, so Wei Ying couldn’t simply turn around and demand to be put in a dormitory corner somewhere. He had to follow Lan Zhan up the steps and into the Jingshi or risk upsetting A-Yuan, which he could never do.

Like everything else, the Jingshi was mostly the way that Wei Ying remembered it, but not quite. He’d never been here when he was a student at the school that used to be here, but on the single visit he’d made in the summer break of his second year of college, this was where he’d stayed. Lan Zhan had made excuses about guests and space then, too, and Wei Ying had been too excited about getting two whole weeks with his best friend to care where he slept. Lan Qiren had made odd noises whenever he spotted the two of them together, but Wei Ying hadn’t thought to wonder about that until months later, when everything had gone to shit and he’d realised that visit was the last memory he’d have of Lan Zhan. He generally tried not to think about that visit unless he was feeling particularly maudlin.

Soft lights flickered on when Lan Zhan touched a panel on the wall and Wei Ying slid the doors shut behind him automatically. A privacy screen had been added in the corner furthest from the bed, and there were a couple of new paintings on the wall.

Lan Zhan lowered A-Yuan to the floor and the little boy looked around, rubbing his eyes sleepily. Wei Ying loosened the straps on his backpack, then took it off with a muffled groan. He set it on the floor by the door--ready to grab if he needed to leave in a hurry--and propped his sword next to it. He felt oddly light with the weight gone. When he bent to unlace his combat boots, he wobbled for a moment until two hands caught him around his waist to steady him. It was almost enough to make him fall anyway, but he managed not to startle or lash out, and it felt good to step out of his heavy boots.

There was a hole in the toe of one of his socks. Wei Ying grimaced at it before straightening up, pushing down a whine when Lan Zhan’s hands fell away.

He was just tired, like A-Yuan. Tired and worn through, and Lan Zhan’s hands had felt so good there, holding him steady.

He focused on A-Yuan instead, who was tired and ready for bed, but also filthy because they hadn’t been able to bathe for a couple of days before they were attacked by zombies. He was probably hungry, too. Wei Ying debated with himself over whether to prioritise a bath or food before realising that he’d left all the food back on the trailer.

He offered Lan Zhan an apologetic wince. “Is there somewhere I can get some food for A-Yuan? And I should put him in the bath because we both smell terrible and he’ll make your nice sheets all gross.”

“I will get food,” Lan Zhan said. “You should bathe him. I have arranged a bed for him.”

Wei Ying blinked a couple of times, his eyes feeling hot, before he managed to produce a watery smile. “Thanks, Lan Zhan.”

“Mn.”

Lan Zhan slipped away before Wei Ying could say anything else, and A-Yuan frowned after him for a moment before turning his attention to Wei Ying.

“Xian-gege?” A-Yuan said.

Wei Ying smiled. “Lan Zhan has gone to get us some food. You are a very stinky, dirty little boy, so you’re having a bath.”

The bathroom was exactly as Wei Ying remembered it. A-Yuan protested tiredly for as long as it took for Wei Ying to run a few inches of water in the bath and strip him, then he decided he was quite happy to sit in the warm water. Wei Ying found a soft facecloth and washed him down thoroughly, concluding that washing A-Yuan’s hair could wait until they were both less tired.

A-Yuan might have been happy to stay in the bath forever, but Wei Ying eventually hauled him out and dried him, then wrapped him in the towel. He eyed the filthy clothes A-Yuan had been wearing with distaste.

“We’re going to steal some of Lan Zhan’s clothes,” he said. “Pretty sure we can make one of his t-shirts work as a nightshirt for you.”

A-Yuan eyed him dubiously, but allowed himself to be led out of the bathroom. The room outside was warmer than it had been earlier and there was a covered tray on the low table he’d eaten at the last time he visited. There was a sound from behind the screen and Lan Zhan emerged holding a pillow.

“I made up the bed for A-Yuan,” he said.

That hot, itchy feeling in Wei Ying’s eyes came back and he swallowed a couple of times. “Oh. Thank you. That’s very kind.”

“Mn.”

“Can we borrow a t-shirt? Can’t put dirty clothes on clean little boys.”

Lan Zhan glanced over his shoulder. “I brought pyjamas for him. They might be too big.”

“Your t-shirt was going to be way too big, so it sounds like an upgrade to me.”

It was only a little folding bed, but the blankets were soft and Lan Zhan had put a hot water bottle in them to warm them up. The stuffed bunny sat on the pillow. The pyjamas were pale blue and fleecy, two sizes too large but Wei Ying tightened the drawstring on the trousers and they stayed up. They’d keep A-Yuan's toes warm while they ate.

“Are you hungry?” he asked when A-Yuan was dressed.

A-Yuan thought about the question carefully before nodding. “Mn.”

“So am I, buddy. Let’s see what Lan Zhan brought for us, hmm?”

He watched carefully as they went to the table, but A-Yuan didn’t trip on his too-long pyjama trousers and he left the bunny behind on the bed. That was a good sign.

Before Wei Ying could kneel down, Lan Zhan levelled a look at him. Wei Ying frowned.

“You should also shower,” Lan Zhan said.

Wei Ying looked down at himself; at the long-sleeved t-shirt that was damp from bathing A-Yuan and spattered with stains where his jacket hadn’t covered it; at the skinny jeans that had a couple of new rips and could probably stand up on their own from dirt; at the hole in his socks.

“Lan Zhaaaan,” he said, but there wasn’t any force in the complaint. It was more out of habit than a real protest.

“The food will keep. Your shower will not.”

“Are you saying I’m stinky and filthy?”

“Stinky,” A-Yuan said, giggling. “Xian-gege is stinky.”

“Wow, attacked on all sides, I must really smell awful,” Wei Ying said.

“You also should wash your hair,” Lan Zhan said without changing expression.

Wei Ying reached up and touched his hair, wrinkling his nose at what he felt there. “Can’t fight zombies without getting a bit messy, I guess. Unless you’re you, but we’re not all you.”

“Mn.”

“I’ll have to steal some of your clothes,” Wei Ying said.

Lan Zhan nodded. “Take what you need.”

Over the last year, Wei Ying had become an expert at the fast, efficient shower, so A-Yuan was still sleepily spooning up rice when he emerged from the bathroom. He'd stolen a pair of pyjamas that hung loose on him and almost covered his hands, but the trousers finished an inch above his ankles, which told him where Lan Zhan put his extra couple of inches in height. As he pulled the drawstring tight around his waist, he had to admit that perhaps Wen Qing had a point about his weight.

He settled down next to A-Yuan and ruffled his hair, receiving a sleepy smile in return. When he turned back to his own bowl, it was filled with rice and vegetables in a dark sauce, still steaming. Lan Zhan didn't meet his eyes, but the corners of his mouth were twitching in a poorly suppressed smile.

Wei Ying picked up his chopsticks and began eating, but after only a couple of bites, A-Yuan dropped his spoon in his bowl and sighed gustily.

"Ready for bed, baobei?" he asked.

A-Yuan frowned and said, "Not a baby."

Wei Ying chuckled. "Yeah, not a baby. I agree. Time for bed, though, before you face-plant in your bowl and undo all my hard work getting you clean."

"Not tired," A-Yuan said, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

"Uh huh, I can tell," Wei Ying said. "But Bunny is lonely, so maybe you should lie down and keep him company, hmm?"

A-Yuan eyed him suspiciously, but allowed himself to be picked up and carried behind the screen to the bed without complaint. Wei Ying briefly wondered whether he should find toothpaste and a brush, but decided that they could think about dental hygiene tomorrow.

There was a lot they could work out tomorrow.

Despite his declaration of not being tired, A-Yuan was asleep almost as soon as Wei Ying pulled the blanket over him. He spent a moment watching the soft flutter of A-Yuan's eyelashes, listening to the gentle snuffle of his breath half buried in his toy bunny, before dropping a kiss on A-Yuan's forehead and creeping away.

His bowl had disappeared from the table, but the door was slightly open. Wei Ying slipped outside and closed it behind him. As he'd half-expected, Lan Zhan was sitting on the step, the bowl next to him on top of a folded blanket. Wei Ying wrapped himself in the blanket and sat down. The bowl was piled with even more food, including something that looked a lot like shredded chicken.

It was a beautiful clear night, quiet and still in the way he'd always associated with Cloud Recesses. He ate quickly, hungrily, and even though it could have used more flavour, it was the best thing he'd eaten in days. Weeks. Maybe since the Wens.

His stomach was over-full when he set the bowl beside him. Lan Zhan stood as if he was going to get more food, and Wei Ying shook his head.

"No more, please, I'll explode if I eat another mouthful." He chuckled. "I may explode anyway. You're too generous."

Lan Zhan shook his head. "It is the least I could do."

Wei Ying shrugged. "The least you could have done is walk by when you saw us in the middle of a zombie mob. Most people would, but you didn't. Why were you out there to rescue us anyway?"

"We were looking for zombies."

"Good news, you found some. They're not that hard to find right now. You probably didn't even need to go that far, I'm sure there's a bunch right on your doorstep."

"We keep our doorstep zombie-free."

Wei Ying looked out at the peaceful garden, the fence with its open gate. "Yeah, you probably do."

"There is a commune not far from where we found you." Lan Zhan was studying the gravel path intently, avoiding Wei Ying's eyes. "They called us for help yesterday. They were being attacked. We were able to kill some of the zombies and drive the rest away. We stayed to repair their defences before we pursued the remainder."

Wei Ying sighed. "Good thing I didn't push on to ask them for shelter last night, then. Sounds like we would have run right into a nasty fight."

"Mn." Lan Zhan's expression didn't change, but the corners of his mouth twitched as though he wanted to make a face. "The mob that attacked you. That was our--my--fault."

"What?"

"We thought the area was uninhabited. We sent the mob to you."

"Huh." Wei Ying rubbed his nose thoughtfully. "Guess that's why the Zombies, Track! app had it as a green area. You had no way to know I was out there, it's not your fault."

"We should have been more careful."

"Yeah? How?"

"Not allowed them to escape."

Wei Ying raised both eyebrows. "Yeah? You'd have left the commune to fend for itself with holes in its defences? What if zombies snuck around behind you and went back for them? It only takes one really bitey zombie to infect a group like that. Sounds like you did your best and I happened to be in the wrong place this morning. Not the first time it's happened, probably won't be the last. Luckily for me, you caught up with the zombies at just the right time."

"Wei Ying--"

He put his hand on Lan Zhan's forearm and squeezed. Lan Zhan turned to him and Wei Ying made himself meet his eyes, refusing to look away or hide his gratitude.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"No, I--"

"Thank you," he repeated, squeezing Lan Zhan's forearm again for emphasis.

For a long moment, they didn't move. Wei Ying didn't know what he was looking for in Lan Zhan's eyes, but he searched anyway. It had been so long since he'd seen Lan Zhan. He thought he'd memorised Lan Zhan's eyes, the warmth so at odds with his cool exterior, but it turned out that he'd only remembered a pale imitation of them. The reality was more intense, so deep he could drown in them if he wasn't careful. Maybe it was because the younger him had been too busy not looking, not seeing, that he'd remembered the wrong thing.

Wei Ying felt his cheeks flush and he blinked, breaking the moment. He laughed awkwardly as he pulled his hand back, tugging the blanket more securely around him. The air was cooler in the mountains, but that wasn't the only reason he shivered.

"It's late," Lan Zhan said.

Wei Ying nodded, grateful for the excuse. "I guess the day is catching up with me."

He yawned theatrically, which triggered a real yawn, and when he opened his eyes there was that soft look on Lan Zhan's face again. He blinked and it was gone, but if Lan Zhan kept doing that, he might start getting ideas and he probably shouldn't let himself indulge that urge.

"Just show me where to set up my bedroll," Wei Ying said, struggling to his feet. "And where I can get a bedroll, because mine is currently a long way away and surrounded by zombies."

His muscles had stiffened up while he sat and he almost fell over, until Lan Zhan wrapped a large hand around his elbow and steadied him. Again. Really, Lan Zhan keeping him from falling over was getting to be a habit, one that Wei Ying suspected was dangerous to acquire. He was too tired to shrug him off, though, and it was even nicer when Lan Zhan's hand moved from his elbow to the small of his back, guiding and steadying him all at once.

He was so distracted by that hand that he didn't notice where he was being guided to until he was standing next to the bed. Lan Zhan's bed.

"Um?" he said.

Lan Zhan reached around and pulled back the covers.

Wei Ying peered up at him. "This is your bed."

"Mn."

"I can't put you out of your bed. Where will you sleep?"

There was a hint of dry humour in Lan Zhan's voice. "It's a large bed."

Wei Ying eyed it and agreed. But. "Are you sure?"

The corner of Lan Zhan's mouth twitched. "It wouldn't be the first time. My bed was smaller then."

It was...a good point. A really good point. Lan Zhan's bed on that college visit so many years ago had been smaller and they'd shared comfortably. It hadn't even occurred to Wei Ying until later that maybe cuddling up to your best friend every night for two weeks was part of the reason everyone had given him such odd looks during the visit. Everyone must have known there was only one fairly small bed.

It had been even later before Wei Ying realised how much he'd liked the cuddling.

"I'll try not to octopus you this time," he said weakly.

"Mn."

Lan Zhan's expression was difficult to read. Wei Ying couldn't tell whether that was an agreeing sound or a tired sound or something else completely. He thought it was probably the latter, because he remembered so many things about Lan Zhan and that sound was new.

The bed looked comfortable and inviting, Wei Ying put one knee on it, but then his tired brain got caught in a confused loop about what to do with the blanket still wrapped around him. Dropping it was untidy, but he couldn't sleep wrapped in it, but he also didn't want to get cold while he folded it.

Lan Zhan solved the problem by pulling the blanket off his shoulders and Wei Ying immediately slid into bed and pulled the covers up to his chin. His hair was still damp and it would be a tangled mess when he woke up. He should probably braid it, but he didn't have the energy for it.

Instead, he watched through slitted eyes as Lan Zhan folded the blanket and turned the lights down. A low buzz signalled that shutters were going down across the doors and windows, keeping them safe. Some of the tension seeped out of Wei Ying at that sound. Lan Zhan disappeared into the bathroom and emerged a few minutes later, dressed in a pair of pyjamas that fitted him perfectly. The bed dipped slightly as Lan Zhan slipped in and lay down on his back.

Wei Ying rolled over to face him, making sure there was a polite distance between their bodies.

"Good night, Lan Zhan," he said quietly.

He thought he caught a hint of a smile at the corner of Lan Zhan's mouth before the lights went out.

"Good night, Wei Ying."

Exhaustion pulled him down and Wei Ying fell into the comforting darkness of sleep.

Chapter Text

Wei Ying never slept deeply. It was more of a light doze interspersed with periods of half wakefulness, where his tired mind tried to sort through the sounds and sensations around him and determine if any of them were dangerous. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had a really solid, deep sleep. Tonight, sleeping in a real bed for the first time in longer than he could remember, he startled to wakefulness a couple of times, always reaching for A-Yuan until he remembered that the child was asleep in his own little bed, safer than he had been for months.

After the second time, Lan Zhan made a disgruntled sleepy sound and rolled over. Before Wei Ying could slip away to sleep somewhere else--the floor, probably--Lan Zhan's arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him closer, spooning up against his back. Wei Ying held himself tense and still for a moment, waiting for Lan Zhan to wake up and realise what he'd done, but Lan Zhan simply sighed and continued sleeping.

It took real concentration to force his muscles to unlock and let the tension drain away, but Wei Ying managed it. He even managed to fall asleep again. Maybe it was the feeling of someone else curling around him, the promise that someone would protect him, but his sleep was less restless after that.

He woke up when Lan Zhan eased away and slipped out of the bed. For a while, he lay on his back blinking sleepily up at the ceiling, trying to muster the energy to get up and check on A-Yuan. What time was it? Surely it couldn't be morning yet.

The sound of the shutters rolling back woke him from the doze he hadn't realised he'd slipped into. He struggled to prop himself up on an elbow, just in time to see Lan Zhan at the door.

"Sleep, Wei Ying," Lan Zhan said.

"Mrrfffbn," Wei Ying mumbled.

Lan Zhan's eyes crinkled. "A-Yuan is still sleeping. I'm going to run."

"Hmmkay," Wei Ying said, and flopped back on the bed.

He heard the low buzz from the shutters and sleep pulled him under before he could think any further.

***

Wei Ying woke up again when a small finger poked him on the cheek, dangerously close to his eye. Somehow he didn't lash out, but only because some half-conscious corner of his brain knew it was A-Yuan and overruled his instincts before he could move. Even with his eyes closed, he knew there could only be one small boy who would be doing that. The small finger poked again and there was a soft giggle. Wei Ying eased his eyes open and blinked: it was still dark.

After a minute, he was able to make out shapes in the dimness, enough to find A-Yuan, although A-Yuan was gently patting his cheek so it wasn't difficult to work out where he was.

Wei Ying batted at him--carefully--and groaned theatrically. "I'm awake! Horrible boy, I'm awake, you can stop patting me."

A-Yuan giggled and a moment later a sharp elbow nailed him in the solar plexus as A-Yuan scrambled onto the bed.

"Why are you awake so early?" Wei Ying said.

"I woke up!"

"Yeah, buddy, I got that. I want to know why."

Wei Ying sighed tiredly. Everything still ached, worse than yesterday because he'd stopped moving and that was a terrible mistake. He wanted coffee, a bath, and some more sleep but he knew he wouldn't be getting the last two now A-Yuan was awake, and he hadn't had the first for months. Was there any coffee left anywhere? Wei Ying flailed towards where he remembered there being a bedside cabinet the last time he was here and was rewarded with a clatter as he swept something off it. His finger brushed over metal and a soft light rose in the room, just enough for Wei Ying to see A-Yuan's smiling face and messy hair. He touched the metal again and the light increased. Wei Ying lifted his wrist to peer at his watch--face cracked but solar powered so it didn't need batteries or charge--and reluctantly admitted that A-Yuan wasn't actually a horrible brat for being awake. It was just after eight. He'd learned over the months that this was actually a lie-in for a toddler.

No, apparently it was dark because the shutters on the window were still down. They were snug and safe, nothing could get to them in here. Maybe that was why he was still fuzzy with sleep instead of coming instantly awake: his subconscious knew they were safe in here and therefore it was taking the day off.

Wei Ying smiled up at A-Yuan, who showed no sign of sleep fuzziness. "You're really awake, huh?"

"Mn!"

"Guess that means you need tickling!"

A-Yuan was shrieking before Wei Ying's fingers even touched him. He giggled and wriggled without ever really trying to get away as Wei Ying tickled him and bounced him around until they were both breathless. To anyone outside the building, it probably sounded like someone was being horribly murdered--maybe not the best thing in the current climate--but A-Yuan was happier than Wei Ying had ever seen him. It was worth the discomfort from stiff bruises and tiny elbows to hear A-Yuan's delighted squeals.

Wei Ying ran out of steam before A-Yuan and lay on his back in the middle of the bed, panting like he'd run a marathon instead of playing with a little boy for a few minutes. He must have drained himself more than he'd realised when he was trying--and failing--to control the zombies. No wonder there was an ache at the back of his skull and his entire body felt like it had been run over by a truck.

A-Yuan poked his cheek again and Wei Ying pretended to bite his finger, a game that somehow A-Yuan didn't find distressing despite everything he'd seen. Maybe because he knew that Wei Ying would never hurt him. Sometimes Wei Ying worried that would end up being dangerous for A-Yuan, but he always put the thought aside. If he taught A-Yuan that everyone should be eyed suspiciously and kept at arm's reach, it would probably do more harm than allowing A-Yuan to trust him.

"Hungry!" A-Yuan announced. "Breakfast?"

Wei Ying sat up, biting down a groan as everything ached, and looked around the room. The last time he'd been here, there had been a communal dining hall. He didn't know what the protocol was now and he couldn't see any sign of their filthy clothes. He'd left them in a pile by the privacy screen but someone--probably Lan Zhan--had stolen them. Wei Ying was sure it wouldn't be appropriate to go wandering in Cloud Recesses in their pyjamas. The last time he was here, he probably wouldn't have cared, but things had changed. The world had changed.

"Do you need to pee first?" Wei Ying asked.

A-Yuan shook his head. Then he frowned and nodded.

"Okay, let's get you to a bathroom and I'll find you some breakfast."

There was a stash of snack bars in his battered backpack. The rest of their food had been lost with the trailer, but Wei Ying had learned that if he was fleeing with just the backpack, it made sense to always keep a few emergency rations in it. He was unwrapping a bar for A-Yuan when there was a low click followed by the hum of the shutters opening. The door slid aside and revealed Lan Zhan, still wearing running gear and carrying a covered tray.

Wei Ying smiled, warmth unfurling in his chest and setting his stomach fluttering. Lan Zhan was as beautiful as he remembered, but he was more than that now. He'd matured, filled out in ways that weren't just physical. It was unfairly attractive. Wei Ying wanted to kick his younger self for being so oblivious, because his older self couldn't ignore the attraction now.

He realised after a moment that he was staring and ducked his head, focusing on taking the snack bar out of A-Yuan's hands.

"Looks like Lan Zhan brought us a much better breakfast," he said. "Best to save that for another time, hm?"

A-Yuan looked dubious but he didn't cry so Wei Ying counted that as a victory.

"You did bring us breakfast, right?" Wei Ying said after a moment. Just in case. Maybe the covered tray was something else?

Lan Zhan closed the door behind him and moved to the table. "I brought breakfast."

"Great. Got a hungry little boy here and he's been eating my cooking for the last few months, so whatever you've got there is going to be a feast for him."

"It's congee," Lan Zhan said, setting the tray down.

"I like congee," A-Yuan said.

"That's not what you said yesterday," Wei Ying protested.

A-Yuan leaned over to the tray. "I like congee."

Lan Zhan obligingly lifted the cover. There was a large covered pot, three bowls, and several covered dishes that probably held toppings that had to be tastier than what Wei Ying had been able to scavenge lately. There was even a small bottle containing a red liquid.

Wei Ying blinked at it before lifting his head to stare at Lan Zhan in shock. "Is that chilli oil?"

Lan Zhan's gaze remained focused on the task of moving the bowls and dishes from his tray to the table. "We began growing peppers some time ago. They're useful in trade."

"Shi--damn, Lan Zhan, you've got chilli oil." Wei Ying couldn't take his eyes off the tiny bottle. "I haven't seen that in months."

"I want chilli oil," A-Yuan declared.

Wei Ying snorted. "Sorry, little radish, but that's definitely not something you'll like."

"Want it."

"You're not going to like it."

A-Yuan pouted. "I will."

"Aiya, so stubborn. What have I done to you?"

When Wei Ying looked up, there was the tiniest hint of a twitch at the corner of Lan Zhan's mouth. A proto-smile, barely noticeable except Wei Ying had spent a lot of time watching Lan Zhan when he was younger and he hadn't forgotten how to read him. Lan Zhan was laughing at him.

"Okay, buddy, I'll let you have a taste of mine," Wei Ying said. "Then you can decide if you really want some."

"Wei Ying."

"I'll keep it mild for him, don't worry."

Lan Zhan didn't look convinced, but he didn't protest when Wei Ying shook some chilli oil into his bowl of congee, stirred it around, and held out a spoonful for A-Yuan to try. A-Yuan gamely took as much as his small mouth would hold and chewed for a second before his face screwed up and his eyes started watering.

"Here, spit out!" Wei Ying held out his hand and A-Yuan spat out the entire messy mouthful. "Drink something. Lan Zhan, he needs water. Guess that was too much for you, hey?"

A-Yuan burst into tears, the loud, screaming kind that weren't just about the spices burning on his tongue. This was the crying Wei Ying had been half-braced for, the build up from yesterday's terror and the strange places and people he'd endured since. Wei Ying told himself that this was a good sign, that A-Yuan felt safe enough to wail this loudly, even though it broke his heart. He gathered A-Yuan in as much as he could while keeping his handful of half-eaten congee stretched out away from A-Yuan's clean borrowed pyjamas and A-Yuan buried his face in Wei Ying's shoulder and sobbed as though the world was ending. Which it wasn't, not really. They'd lived through the world ending and this was what happened afterwards, but to a small boy, that probably wasn't a helpful distinction.

Wei Ying gathered him in and rocked him, petting his hair soothingly and murmuring nonsense in his ear because he knew it helped A-Yuan to hear his voice. After a minute, something touched his outstretched hand and he jerked his head up, startled. It was Lan Zhan's warm hand cradling his, scraping the worst of the congee up with a spoon and then carefully cleaning off the residue with a cloth. Wei Ying mouthed thank you at him and pulled A-Yuan closer, hugging him as tightly as felt safe. A-Yuan kept on scream-crying for a couple of minutes but gradually the volume decreased and tears began to soak the shoulder of Wei Ying's own borrowed pyjamas. The sobbing was no less heartbreaking even though it was quieter, but it was the other half of the release A-Yuan needed. He sobbed until his tears ran out and he slowly stilled. Wei Ying rubbed his back soothingly until he felt A-Yuan relax against him, worn out from having so many emotions in such a small body.

"Hey buddy, are you feeling better?" Wei Ying asked.

He felt A-Yuan nod against his neck.

"Think you can sit up for me? Lan Zhan is going to get you a nice cool cloth so we can clean you up."

Out of the corner of his eye, Wei Ying saw Lan Zhan stand and move away. After a long hesitation, A-Yuan lifted his head and sat up straighter. His face was still red, his nose was snotty, and there were tear-tracks down his face, but he looked calm. He sniffed mightily and Wei Ying captured his arm before he could wipe his nose on his sleeve.

"Maybe we'll wait for the cloth, okay?" Wei Ying asked, chuckling lightly to show A-Yuan it was okay, he wasn't in trouble. "You still hungry?"

A-Yuan looked thoughtful for a moment and then nodded. "Mn."

"Thought you might be."

"Not your congee?" A-Yuan asked suspiciously.

Wei Ying pouted. "Is my congee that bad?"

"Mn!"

"Everyone's a critic."

Lan Zhan returned and held out a cloth as he knelt down. As promised, it was cool when Wei Ying touched it and he shot Lan Zhan a quick smile of gratitude before focusing on A-Yuan again. He wiped the tears away gently, wiped the snot a little more aggressively, and then patted A-Yuan's face with a cool, clean corner because it would feel good. A-Yuan tolerated it gamely for a couple of minutes before pushing the cloth away.

"Good enough," he declared. "I'm clean."

Wei Ying bopped him lightly on the nose with the cloth but helped him back to his place at the table without comment. Clean was relative: at some point, A-Yuan's hair desperately needed washing. Wei Ying would tackle that when he knew how long they could stay.

Lan Zhan wordlessly spooned some fresh congee into a bowl for A-Yuan. He hesitated over the toppings and Wei Ying shook his head minutely. They rarely had the resources to add much to their meals and A-Yuan might not react well to another new flavour so soon after being assaulted by chilli oil. Lan Zhan placed the bowl in front of A-Yuan, who picked up his spoon and immediately began eating.

"Guess I haven't scarred him for life yet," Wei Ying said with a wry smile.

"Children are adaptable," Lan Zhan said.

"You spend a lot of time with kids these days?"

"We have a number of children here. I have observed them."

Wei Ying snorted. "From a distance, like they're zoo specimens?"

Lan Zhan didn't say anything, but the hint of pink on the tips of his ears betrayed him. It was one of the things Wei Ying had always liked about him; the tiny tells that hardly anyone noticed but he'd learned to read over the years. If anyone wanted to know how Lan Zhan felt, they needed to study his ears and his eyes, it was all there as plain as day.

His stomach rumbled and he set the thought aside to attend to his own breakfast. More chilli oil went into his bowl and he added a selection of toppings that made a tiny wrinkle appear between Lan Zhan's brow. Wei Ying sighed happily at the first bite, flavour bursting on his tongue so intensely it was almost painful. He hadn't eaten this well for months. Maybe a year. Even at the Wen's sanctuary in Yiling, he hadn't been able to make his lips tingle from spices. It was bliss.

"If you keep feeding me like this," Wei Ying said through a mouthful of food that he swallowed hastily at Lan Zhan's disapproving look, "you'll never get rid of me."

"Wei Ying can stay for as long as he wants," Lan Zhan said, his gaze on his own--much less flavourful--bowl.

Wei Ying shook his head, even though a surge of longing tried to take his breath away. "Your uncle could barely stand me for two weeks. I can't ask you to let me stay indefinitely. You must have heard the stories by now."

"My brother is head of Cloud Recesses now," Lan Zhan said. "He will let you stay."

"Always so stubborn!" Wei Ying watched A-Yuan out of the corner of his eye, but the boy didn't seem to be listening to the grown-up talk. "We'll talk about it later, okay?"

Lan Zhan inclined his head.

Wei Ying offered him a teasing smile. "I can't go anywhere right now. Someone has stolen our clothes and we can't walk around this venerable institute in just pyjamas. These aren't even mine!"

"I have requested replacements," Lan Zhan said mildly.

"Lan Zhan! You can't just replace our clothes."

"Your clothes will be repaired and returned." The corner of Lan Zhan's mouth twitched. "If it's possible."

Wei Ying drew himself up and pointed with his spoon. "Those jeans are meant to have those rips! And my jacket is barely torn at all. Really, apart from a bit of mess from fighting the zombies you accidentally drove towards us, they're perfectly good. We were hardly walking around in rags."

"All those rips?"

Wei Ying sputtered and stared at him for a moment. The Lan Zhan he remembered had never teased him back, but there was a look in his eyes that made Wei Ying's heart stutter in his chest for a moment. Somehow while he was gone, Lan Zhan had acquired an even bitchier side and he wasn't making any effort keep it inside. It was amazing.

"Maybe there's one extra," Wei Ying admitted. "Possibly two. I don't keep count."

"Mn."

"It's been a while since we last had a chance to wash anything. Sorry if the smell offended anyone."

"It didn't."

"I had some clean stuff in our supplies for special occasions but--" Wei Ying shrugged. "Guess it's a good thing the important stuff is in my backpack."

"A fresh team went out to clean up the area more thoroughly," Lan Zhan said. "I can ask them to find your belongings."

"It's just a trailer with some food and a few clean clothes. It's not worth risking anyone over."

"I will ask them."

"No, Lan Zhan, no." Wei Ying pulled up his sternest face. "We didn't lose anything that matters. I've still got my bike, my electronic shit, A-Yuan still has his bunny. Everything else is replaceable."

A-Yuan looked up at the sound of his name. "Have you seen my bunny, Zhan-gege?"

"A-Yuan!"

Wei Ying didn't know whether he was more embarrassed by A-Yuan calling Lan Zhan something so familiar or by how much he liked it. A-Yuan's eyes were wide and innocent when he turned to Wei Ying. There was a bit of rice on his cheek.

"I get Bunny," A-Yuan said, and ran towards the privacy screen without asking for permission.

Wei Ying sighed. "I'm going to have to teach him manners if he's going to stay here. There wasn't much time before."

"He's fine."

"He's definitely not fine, but we haven't had time to do much about that either."

A-Yuan reappeared with his stuffed rabbit in his arms. In the daylight, it looked even filthier than Wei Ying remembered. There was a splash of something dark on its ear that Wei Ying didn't want to think about too closely.

"Bunny needs a bath," he said.

A-Yuan shook his head. "No."

"Yes."

"No!"

His lower lip trembled and Wei Ying felt a little sick inside. A second screaming fit in one morning would just be awful. He wasn't ready for it.

Lan Zhan reached out and ran a finger down the back of Bunny's head while A-Yuan watched him suspiciously. "I have a friend who is good at looking after special friends like Bunny. She can clean him and fix him before you know he's gone."

A-Yuan cuddled Bunny tighter. "Bunny isn't broken."

Lan Zhan lifted one of the ears, which was indeed looking frayed at the base and in danger of falling off if someone pulled at it too hard. For example, if a small, frightened boy yanked at it in the middle of a nightmare. A-Yuan looked at where he was pointing, taking in the thin threads holding his toy's ear in place.

"Zhan-gege fix?"

"My friend will fix him," Lan Zhan said. "She's very kind. It won't hurt."

A-Yuan appeared to consider this idea carefully. Wei Ying held his breath. It could still go either way: a screaming tantrum or A-Yuan allowing someone to take his Bunny.

"He'll be back for bedtime," Lan Zhan said.

That appeared to be enough to appease A-Yuan. He slowly relaxed his hold and held out the toy. Wei Ying let out his breath slowly.

"Thank you for trusting me with him," Lan Zhan said gravely as he took the rabbit.

"I think you need a bath, too," Wei Ying said, knowing he was pushing his luck but trying anyway.

A-Yuan shrugged. "Okay!"

Wei Ying blinked. "Huh. Wasn't expecting that. Not going to argue, though, your hair is disgusting and I can't take you to see Qing-jie and A-Ning like that."

"Mn."

A-Yuan stood and trotted to the bathroom. Wei Ying watched him, trying to work out what had just happened to him.

"Have you eaten enough?" Lan Zhan asked.

"Hm?" Wei Ying looked down at his empty bowl. He could probably eat more but A-Yuan needed a bath. "Oh! Yeah, I'll be fine. Gotta go and make sure he doesn't flood your bathroom."

"Wen Qing is working in the medical centre," Lan Zhan said, "but Wen Ning is in the daycare today. A-Yuan may enjoy visiting other children."

"It's been a while, but sure, let's see how he feels about that."

Lan Zhan thankfully didn't ask any questions. He held up the bedraggled rabbit instead. "I'll fetch your clothes and take this to my friend."

"You really have someone who can get it washed and dry by bedtime?"

"Mn."

From the bathroom, Wei Ying heard childish giggles and running water, and he winced internally. "I'd better go."

"I will be back by the time you finish."

"If you're not, I'm putting him in one of your shirts."

"I understand."

***

Wei Ying wrapped A-Yuan in a towel and surveyed the mess they'd created in Lan Zhan's bathroom. A-Yuan was squeaky clean, even his hair, and he giggled as Wei Ying rubbed him dry and squeezed the water out of his hair with a corner of the towel. There were spatters and puddles of water everywhere because A-Yuan had been so excited about the bath that he'd splashed with an abandon he'd been too tired for yesterday. It was probably a good thing Lan Zhan didn't have any bath toys: Wei Ying didn't want to think about the devastation they could have created with more than the two small cups he'd found to pour water over A-Yuan.

Last night, A-Yuan had been too tired to do more than wearily comply with Wei Ying's attempts to scrub the worst of the filth off him. It had been weeks since they'd last been in a refuge that had enough water and soap for a real bath two days running.

Wei Ying tucked the towel more firmly around A-Yuan when he was dry and spent a couple of minutes mopping up the worst of the water with another towel.

"You're a menace," he told A-Yuan, who just giggled and repeated, "Menace! Menace! Menace!".

When he was satisfied that the bathroom didn't look like a cyclone had gone through it, Wei Ying slid the door open, just in time to see Lan Zhan step through the main door carrying a large basket. He was suddenly acutely aware that he hadn't escaped A-Yuan's splashing: the borrowed pyjamas were soaked in places and clung to his chest and legs. Lan Zhan was staring at him and Wei Ying smiled ruefully.

"Bathtime with a toddler," he said. "Hope you've got some clean clothes there for us, because I definitely can't go out in public like this."

A-Yuan streaked past him, towel abandoned, and Wei Ying groaned.

"Why do toddlers want to be naked all the time?" he asked as he ran after A-Yuan. "Lan Zhan, please tell me you've got clothes for this child."

"Noooooooo!" A-Yuan screamed, dodging Wei Ying's grasp with far more dexterity than a child his age should have.

"I have clothes," Lan Zhan said.

"Great." Wei Ying scooped A-Yuan up when he slowed down near the privacy screen and lifted him, giggling and wriggling, in the air. "Got you, my little radish! Time to put clothes on!"

"No clothes!"

"Yes clothes!"

"No clothes!"

"I have a sweater with a rocket on."

A-Yuan stopped wriggling and Wei Ying peered around him to get a better look at what Lan Zhan was holding up. It was indeed a sweater with a rocket on. The sweater was dark blue and the rocket dark grey, with bright red flames coming out of it and little pom poms dotted around it that might have been stars. It was adorable and Wei Ying's heart did something complicated in his chest. Lan Zhan was far too good.

"Look what Lan-gege brought you," Wei Ying said. "Yes clothes?"

A-Yuan seemed to consider this carefully before nodding decisively. "I get a rocket sweater."

"Yeah, you get a rocket sweater."

He also got a tiny pair of jeans, a t-shirt, and underwear. None of it was new, but it had clearly been cared for well and it was more or less the right size for A-Yuan. There were more clean clothes for A-Yuan in the basket, too, and Wei Ying had to swallow down a heavy lump in his throat. They'd left Yilling with what they could carry in his backpack and he'd only been able to pick up two clean sets of clothes for A-Yuan in the months since. Neither of them had fitted and he'd been worrying about what he'd do when A-Yuan inevitably grew enough to make it impossible to wrestle him into them.

Maybe that was why A-Yuan had been so resistant to clothes this morning: he didn't like the way the neck of his old t-shirt squished his head when Wei Ying pulled it on him.

"Thank you," Wei Ying said as he tugged A-Yuan's new sweater down.

"We have plenty," Lan Zhan said. "I could not estimate his shoe size. We will need to take him in person to find some."

"He can wear his old ones for now," Wei Ying said. "They're not too bad."

Lan Zhan's expression was dubious, but there wasn't much to be done about it. He reached into the basket and produced a small yellow car. A-Yuan's eyes lit up when Lan Zhan offered it to him.

"Children need toys," Lan Zhan said when Wei Ying tried to protest.

"He has a toy."

"His rabbit is undergoing repairs. Children need more than one toy."

A-Yuan didn't need prompting to say thank you and grab the car, making vrooming noises as he crawled away with it. Wei Ying watched him for a moment, knowing his face was probably doing something halfway between smiling and crying and totally unable to stop it.

"Wei Ying--"

"Kids are amazing, aren't they?" Wei Ying said, before Lan Zhan could ask anything he would have to answer with more honesty that he wanted to share right now. "He's playing like nothing bad has ever happened to him." He took a deep, shaky breath and let it out. "Sorry about your bathroom."

The corner of Lan Zhan's mouth twitched. "It will dry out."

"Yeah."

Wei Ying shifted a little and was abruptly aware of the soggy, cold fabric clinging to him. He grimaced. "Sorry about your pyjamas, too."

There was a tiny hesitation before Lan Zhan said, "They'll also dry."

Wei Ying turned to frown at him, but Lan Zhan was digging through the basket, his face hidden. The tips of his ears were slightly pink. Wei Ying decided not to think about that. Lan Zhan's ears used to turn pink whenever he was embarrassed or angry, but he was sure Lan Zhan wasn't angry and he couldn't think what Lan Zhan could be embarrassed about.

"These are for you," Lan Zhan said, pulling a small pile of clothes out of the basket. "I thought you'd prefer your own boots for now."

Wei Ying took the clothes without looking at them. "Thank you."

"No need."

"You're going to have to let me say thank you someday," Wei Ying said. "It's rude to keep doing that."

Lan Zhan said nothing. His face didn't even twitch.

Wei Ying sighed. "I'll get changed. You'll have to show me how to find the daycare. There wasn't one the last time I was here."

"I will show you."

Wei Ying almost thanked him, but he shut his mouth quickly and scrambled to his feet. Maybe he should save the thanks for the big stuff if Lan Zhan felt so uncomfortable with it. Lan Zhan hadn't been so odd about it when they were younger, but that was years ago. Things had changed. He shouldn't assume that he still knew Lan Zhan the way he used to.

In the bathroom again, Wei Ying changed quickly. There was clean underwear in the bundle and Wei Ying had to bite his tongue at how good it felt to pull on clothes that had been properly laundered, not just rinsed out and hung until they were only damp rather than dripping. The t-shirt and jeans probably would have been the perfect size a few years ago, but they hung on him loosely now. Wei Ying made a face and hitched the jeans up. Maybe he could borrow a belt. The hoodie was pale blue with the Cloud Recesses logo stitched onto the shoulder. It was soft and warm and it smelled good when Wei Ying buried his nose in it. The smell was as familiar as the logo, and Wei Ying realised why after searching his memories for a minute: it was the scent he'd always associated with Lan Zhan, the incense he used to burn in his room at school and college.

The hoodie was at least a size too large and Wei Ying thought about challenging Lan Zhan about whose hoodie it really was, but he decided not to. He might have to give it back if he did, and he liked the warmth and the smell too much for that. He pushed that thought back into the place where he kept all his most difficult thoughts and plastered on a smile.

"I hung the pyjamas to dry," he said as he slid the bathroom door open. "Unless you want me to wash them?"

Lan Zhan was kneeling on the floor with A-Yuan, listening to A-Yuan chatter as he vroomed the little yellow car around. Wei Ying swallowed hard. That was another thing to push into his difficult thoughts place.

"No need," Lan Zhan said without looking up. "The water was clean. You will need them tonight."

"Right. Yeah. Tonight." Wei Ying shoved his hands into his pockets and winced as his jeans tried to slide down. He pulled them up. "Can I borrow a belt?"

Lan Zhan looked up and his eyes widened for a fraction of a second, the expression gone again so fast Wei Ying wondered whether he'd imagined it.

"You should eat more," Lan Zhan said as he stood up.

"I eat enough."

This time there was no mistaking the disapproval in Lan Zhan's eyes. Wei Ying had a feeling he was going to have suspiciously large portions as long as he stayed here, which seemed ridiculous but it had been nice not to feel vaguely hungry after his meals so far.

"I remember there used to be rules about portions when I was here," Wei Ying said.

Lan Zhan was rummaging in a drawer and didn't look up. "Exceptions are made. We have plenty here."

"You do?"

"We already grew and stored much of our produce before the outbreak began. Anything we cannot grow, we can trade for." Lan Zhan pulled something out of the drawer and shut it. "Nobody will go hungry."

"I'm surprised people aren't beating down your door to be admitted."

"It's not easy to get here. We take in those we can." Lan Zhan held out his hand. "Your belt."

Wei Ying flashed him a quick smile as he took it. There was a look in Lan Zhan's eyes he couldn't quite meet so he looked down to focus on threading the belt and fastening it.

"Just until I've got my own jeans back," Wei Ying said.

Lan Zhan made a humming sound he couldn't interpret. It wasn't agreement; he didn't know what it meant.

"I'll show you how to operate the shutters here," Lan Zhan said. "I can key them to your signature."

"You'd trust me with that?"

"Of course." Lan Zhan paused for a moment. "We will need to talk to my brother for access to the main buildings and perimeter."

"Sounds good." Wei Ying forced himself to smile. "No hard feelings if he asks me to move on, okay?"

"He won't."

"You know the Yiling Laozu is me, right?" Wei Ying glanced across the room, but A-Yuan was still playing with the car. "And you know what I can do. I wouldn't blame your brother if he didn't want me hanging out here. As long as he's okay with A-Yuan staying here, I'm not going to fight him."

Lan Zhan made that uninterpretable sound again and turned away, walking toward the panel on the wall he'd used to close the shutters last night. Wei Ying watched him for a moment before sighing. Lan Zhan hadn't changed that much: he was still stubborn and he still trusted Wei Ying too much.

He allowed Lan Zhan to add him to the Jingshi's security and watched Lan Zhan demonstrate each function on the panel.

"Manual cranks inside for everything," Lan Zhan said, showing Wei Ying where they were. "In case we lose power. And all external security must sense a living heartbeat before release even if the system recognises you."

Wei Ying nodded his approval. "Very smart. I'd have set up the same."

There was a subtle flicker in Lan Zhan's eyes that might, on anyone else, have been an eye roll. "These are built from your schematics."

"Mine?"

"Your memory is no better than it used to be."

"I'm sure I'd remember anti-zombie defence schematics."

Lan Zhan's mouth twitched. "It was a thought exercise. We were considering post-apocalypse scenarios."

Wei Ying blinked. It sounded...familiar, now that Lan Zhan mentioned it. The kind of late night ridiculousness he would have inflicted on Lan Zhan when they were in college. Maybe even when he visited here, because in college he'd usually respected Lan Zhan's closed door and old man bed times. When he'd stayed here during that golden summer visit, he'd bullied Lan Zhan into staying up late and talking about anything that came to him. Lan Zhan hadn't seemed to mind.

"That was just a stupid late night bullshitting thing," Wei Ying said weakly.

"Mn." Lan Zhan's mouth twitched and this time there was definitely amusement in his eyes. "You spent three hours drawing detailed plans."

"And you kept them?"

Lan Zhan turned away, the tips of his ears turning pink again. Wei Ying didn't know what to make of that. He wanted to pester Lan Zhan and find out what else he'd kept, how many other bits of ephemera Lan Zhan had hoarded away like a weird squirrel, but he also didn't want to know the answer. It was something Wei Ying probably needed to think about carefully before pursuing.

"We should go to the daycare," Lan Zhan said. "It will be lunchtime soon."

Wei Ying shook himself and refocused. A-Yuan, that was a safer thing to think about.

"Good plan." He crouched down beside the boy. "Ready to go and see A-Ning?"

A-Yuan frowned. "I can take my car?"

"Yeah, you can take the car."

"Okay." A-Yuan stood and held out his arms. "Carry?"

Wei Ying sighed. "You've got legs, buddy. I can't carry you everywhere."

A-Yuan was unmoved and, honestly, Wei Ying couldn't blame him. Why walk when there was someone to carry him? If Wei Ying had someone to carry him, he'd take advantage all the time. Several aching muscles screamed at him, but he lifted A-Yuan up with almost no groaning at all and gestured for Lan Zhan to lead the way.

***

Wei Ying watched A-Yuan playing with the yellow car and a red car he'd found in the daycare toybox. Another little boy sat beside him with a digger. They weren't playing together, but they seemed quite happy to be playing next to each other.

"That's normal for his age," Wen Ning said quietly.

"You know there's nothing normal about anything that's happened in his life, right?" Wei Ying said.

Wen Ning nodded. There was a new scar on his neck that hadn't been there the last time Wei Ying saw him, a silvery mark that looked like a bite. He had scars on his forearms, not all of them bite-shaped, and a long scar down the side of his face. Despite all of that, the children in the daycare seemed to adore him. A-Yuan had gone from intimidated by the noisy room to happy as soon as he saw Wen Ning. Wei Ying was trying not to feel jealous about that because A-Yuan wasn't really his. Wen Ning was his cousin; Wei Ying was just the guy who ran away with him when he was told to.

"It's a good sign he's willing to do that," Wen Ning said. "I'd be worried if we couldn't detach him from your leg when there are lots of fun new toys to play with."

"But he's so cute when he's attached to my leg," Wei Ying said, pouting.

Wen Ning chuckled. "He really is, but it's healthy that he can detach, too."

"You're being so logical and sensible about this."

"I'm sorry, should I try to worry you and send A-Yuan back to you?"

Wei Ying sighed. "No, that would be much worse. He'll be okay here, right?"

Wen Ning nodded eagerly. "He'll be fine here. Don't worry. We've even got a play therapist here." He pointed towards a small woman who was sitting in a corner with a child slightly older than A-Yuan. "She can assess A-Yuan if you'd like?"

Wei Ying watched her for a minute and then looked back at A-Yuan. It was so hard to tell whether A-Yuan was genuinely a happy child or if there was trauma from the last months lurking in there, waiting to erupt. The selfish part of Wei Ying wanted to steal A-Yuan away and curl around him, possibly snapping at anyone who came near, but there was a stronger part of him that knew that wouldn't be good for A-Yuan. He needed stability, more than just one exhausted man caring for him, and support from someone who had a background in children's therapy that Wei Ying couldn't provide.

"Yeah, if she's got some time, that would probably be good," Wei Ying said. "I did my best but..."

Wen Ning nodded. "He looks healthier and happier than some of the kids who have come in here. You did a good job."

Wei Ying's eyes burned for a moment and he blinked hard until they stopped. It would definitely traumatise A-Yuan if he saw his Xian-gege fall apart.

"Thanks," Wei Ying said, aware his voice came out shaky and rough.

"Maybe you could go somewhere?" Wen Ning said. "Just for a couple of hours. You need time, too."

Wei Ying looked at A-Yuan, still completely absorbed by the cars, and nodded. "Yeah. I could do that."

He wasn't sure where he could go, but if Wen Ning thought it was a good idea and A-Yuan would be okay then he'd do it. Maybe he'd go back to the Jingshi: it was the only place he could get into right now. A-Yuan nodded and hugged him when Wei Ying told him that he was going to do some grown-up things while A-Yuan played, but he didn't burst into tears and Wei Ying reminded himself that was a good thing. Maybe if he told himself that enough times, it would sink in eventually.

Lan Zhan was standing outside the daycare door.

"Were you waiting for me?" Wei Ying asked.

Lan Zhan gave him a look that was so long-suffering, Wei Ying almost laughed.

"Wen Ning told me to go away," Wei Ying said. "Were you really waiting for me?"

Lan Zhan started walking away and Wei Ying scurried to catch up.

"You will need a tour," Lan Zhan said. "There have been changes since you were last here."

"I noticed," Wei Ying said, following. "Guess a zombie apocalypse does that."

"Most changes predate that."

"Really?"

"The expansions of some living quarters began shortly after you...left. The security improvements seemed prudent after we learned what was coming."

"You expanded the medical centre a lot, too. You probably have space and equipment for mass traumas in there now, not just cuts and grazes."

"That also seemed prudent."

"You must have started work as soon as the rumours started."

"Before."

"How?" Wei Ying frowned, thoughts racing. "Fuck. You found someone with verifiable precognition powers? The real deal?"

"Her gift is unpredictable. She has visions. Some happen within days, a few are yet to happen. We could not tell when the disaster was coming, only that it would come eventually, no matter what we did to prevent it."

"You didn't try to warn anyone?"

Lan Zhan's lips turned down unhappily. "She can't direct her gift or induce a vision. There were concerns about her safety if we revealed her presence."

That was fair enough. Wei Ying had always wondered if a genuine precog had been found somewhere and hidden. That was a gift with value no matter how limited its scope and people would want to control it. Anyone with that gift would be sensible to hide.

"So, what, she was registered here with a bullshit gift that nobody would ask for demonstrations of?"

Lan Zhan's silence was enough. Wei Ying knew with painful familiarity how easily that could be done and how much it sucked.

"And nobody thought it was worth getting the word out that the zombie apocalypse was coming. You just quietly prepared so when it all went to hell, this place wouldn't fall."

"The elders made the decision." Lan Zhan shook his head minutely. "I disagreed."

"But you went along with it."

There was a slight tightness around Lan Zhan's mouth, a hint in his eyes that Wei Ying could read immediately.

"Ah." The sense of relief was so strong, it almost made him dizzy: Lan Zhan hadn't changed so much while Wei Ying was gone. "Who did you tell?"

"I didn't tell anyone." Lan Zhan lifted his chin. "I discussed some thought exercises that I had been contemplating."

"Uh huh."

"It was Nie Huisang."

"Good choice. He got the word to the right people?"

"I don't know." Lan Zhan's expression turned regretful. "I waited too long. It was less than a month before the first rumours."

"Oh."

"There was no way to pass word to the wider world that they would believe without handing over the girl."

"How old is she?"

"Twelve."

Wei Ying winced. "Yeah, I can see why you wouldn't want her ending up in a government lab."

"Her age was irrelevant."

"I just meant...no, you're right. Nobody should go through that, doesn't matter their age." Wei Ying was quiet for a minute, thinking carefully. "Huisang didn't warn me."

Lan Zhan's eyes widened for a moment, startled, before one of his blank mask-like looks flowed down. It made something inside Wei Ying ache a little.

"You were in contact with him?"

"Not...regularly. Not like that. He was just...someone who would take my messages, no questions asked, when I needed to recommend somewhere for a kid to go."

"Recommend?"

Wei Ying shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. At some point they'd stopped walking; he set off again down one of the gravel paths, trusting Lan Zhan to follow. "I was teaching before all this. Found a couple of kids with gifts over the years. They needed somewhere to go that would believe them."

There was silence, an aching sort of silence that made Wei Ying's gut churn. He could have sent the kids here, to Lan Zhan. He'd stared at Lan Zhan's phone number the first time he found a gifted kid, written in a tiny notebook that was currently in his backpack in the Jingshi. It had been so tempting to call the number, to hear his voice, but he'd made promises when he left. He couldn't tell Lan Zhan where the kid he'd found was without telling Lan Zhan where he was, and he'd promised. No contact, no return.

Nie Huisang was the one person Wei Ying trusted to keep anything he learned secret and not come looking for him.

He assumed the kids he'd sent were in Qinghe, which meant they were as safe as they could be anywhere. It had always been built like a fortress masquerading as a school. Appropriate when so many of its students had dangerous gifts that needed strong walls to contain accidents. It would be even stronger now, particularly if Nie Mingjue had paid attention to his brother's warnings.

"Lan Zhan, I didn't--"

Wei Ying broke off as they rounded a corner and he registered the figure walking towards them. He mentally swore. It was Lan Huan. He'd been hoping to put this off, have a little more time before he was asked--always with a kind, polite smile--to leave Cloud Recesses. For a moment, he considered grabbing Lan Zhan and yanking him back the way they'd come, but it was too late: Lan Huan had seen them.

Wei Ying realised he'd stopped moving as well as talking. Lan Zhan was standing next to him, looking perfectly calm as his brother approached them. The blank mask had faded, replaced with a polite but neutral expression that Wei Ying didn't like any better. It was an expression he remembered from thirteen years ago, when Lan Zhan was preparing to be unexpectedly confrontational with his uncle, usually defending something Wei Ying had said or done. Wei Ying had only visited for a couple of weeks that final summer and Lan Zhan had worn that expression three times. Wei Ying hadn't known what to do with it then and he still didn't know what to do with it now.

Lan Zhan dipped his head when Lan Huan stopped in front of them, murmuring a polite greeting. Wei Ying ducked into something that was almost a bow. He didn't quite dare to meet Lan Huan's eyes when he straightened.

"A-Zhan," Lan Huan said warmly. His voice turned cooler. "Mr Wei. My brother told me you were here."

Wei Ying swallowed. "Ah, yeah. Hi. Nice to see you again."

Lan Huan's smile didn't waver, but it somehow stopped reaching his eyes. "We should probably have a talk. A-Zhan said you had a child with you?"

"He's with Wen Ning in the daycare right now."

"Wonderful. I'm sure he's being cared for very well there." Lan Huan stepped to the side slightly. "If you'd like to come to my office?"

It wasn't a request. Wei Ying nodded, really, really wishing he'd brought his backpack and sword with him. Hopefully Lan Huan would let him pick them up before he left. He glanced at Lan Zhan for reassurance, but there was a tiny line between Lan Zhan's brows that made the churning in his gut worse.

Wei Ying clenched his jaw and followed the two brothers in silence.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

The office had changed since Wei Ying had last seen it. Lan Qiren's low desk and kneeling cushion had been replaced with a modern office set, still elegant but probably more comfortable. Wei Ying didn't feel like he should kneel as soon as he entered anymore, which he'd always suspected was the reason for Lan Qiren's setup. Although it was true he'd usually been here to receive judgement and punishment; that might have contributed to the urge to kneel and kowtow.

There were shutters over the big windows, currently open, and a guandao propped in a stand in the corner. The doors into the office complex had all been replaced with sturdy metal ones similar to the Jingshi's and a tall new fence surrounded it. Cloud Recesses was still elegant and beautiful, they hadn't destroyed the greenery and reduced everything to bare metal and stone the way some havens had, but the defences weren't subtle. Wei Ying approved.

He wondered whether his schematics had been the basis for all of this. Everything he'd seen so far made sense to him, but his ideas hadn't been revolutionary. A lot of people must have come up with similar designs since the world changed.

Lan Huan settled behind his desk. There were a couple of guest chairs in front of it, but Lan Zhan made no move to sit in them, so Wei Ying didn't either.

"I'm glad to see you're looking well," Lan Huan said with one of his polite smiles.

Those smiles used to be warmer, but Wei Ying could understand the edge of chill to them now. He wasn't the same boy he'd been back then. Lan Huan wasn't trying to pretend he was.

He inclined his head. "Thanks to Lan Zhan. It would have gone a lot worse yesterday without him."

"Yes, I read the report." Lan Huan's smile turned rueful. "I've sent a notification to the Zombies Track! app to update the status of the area. A team is out there doing some clean-up but it might take a couple of sweeps to complete the job."

"Ah. That's...yeah, that's a good idea. Thank you."

"I understand the boy is related to Wen Ning and Wen Qing. He must be delighted to see them again."

"It's...complicated." Wei Ying forced himself to smile. "You know how kids can be at that age. He hasn't seen them for a long time and a lot's happened. He'll get there."

"Of course. We have an excellent play therapist on hand."

"Wen Ning is getting that set up."

Lan Huan nodded. "I'm sure it will help him."

There was an awkward silence. Wei Ying shifted on his feet, wishing yet again that he'd brought his backpack or at least his sword with him. Something he could fiddle with, anyway. Lan Huan was impossible to read. That polite half-smile never left his face and his eyes were kind but not warm. Everyone had always said he was the more expressive brother, but Wei Ying had never been able to see it. To him, Lan Zhan was more open by a mile, and anyone who couldn't read him wasn't looking properly.

Eventually, Lan Huan either decided to take pity on him or needed to hurry things along. He had to be a busy man.

"Are you planning to stay long?" he asked.

Wei Ying shrugged. "That's not really my decision. I can move on today if you need me to."

"And why would I need that?"

Wei Ying gave him a look and Lan Huan's smile softened into that rueful one again, but this time it felt a little less professional. Maybe a little kinder.

"I apologise, Mr Wei. That wasn't fair of me."

Lan Zhan made a small sound that might have been annoyance. Wei Ying didn't dare to sneak a look to see his face.

"You're right," Lan Huan said. "There are probably excellent reasons why I might ask you to move on."

"Probably?"

"I try not to allow rumour to dictate my decisions," Lan Huan said. "Rumour has been responsible for some terrible things in the past."

"Good rumours always have an element of truth to them," Wei Ying said.

"Indeed." Lan Huan titled his head slightly. "Are you planning to raise a zombie army and take over the world?"

Wei Ying couldn't stop the sudden bark of laughter that escaped him. "Fuck, no. I can half-control four zombies, maybe five on a good day, and I'm pretty tired right now. Not exactly an army."

"But enough to cause a disaster if you opened our gates and released them in here."

"My kid--" Wei Ying cut himself off. A-Yuan wasn't his. "A-Yuan is here. I wouldn't do that."

"And if the boy wasn't here?"

Wei Ying made himself shrug, made himself look relaxed. As if he didn't care and none of the doubts and stories about him hurt. "I wouldn't be here. As soon as word gets out that you're sheltering me, I know what happens."

"Those rumours again."

"They're not going away any time soon."

Lan Huan shook his head. "Your gift is the only part I recognise in those stories. The rest of it...well, I don't believe that any gift has an inherent moral value. It's the intent behind its use that's important. We call Wen Qing's gift healing because that's how she uses it. The same gift has been used to do terrible things before. In the right circumstances, I'm sure your gift can be used for good purposes."

Wei Ying shook his head. "I think most people would disagree with that. Walking corpses aren't a good look to most people."

"Until there is a need for one." Lan Huan smiled. "In your time here, I don't believe there was ever a sufficient need for one. You were a student for several years and I didn't see a single walking corpse."

"Were you looking for them?"

The look in Lan Huan's eyes was all the confirmation Wei Ying needed.

"My uncle was concerned about your friendship with my brother," Lan Huan said. "Your gift was so unusual."

Wei Ying couldn't stop himself turning to Lan Zhan. "Did he tell you about that?"

Lan Zhan shook his head once. "I didn't know until you told me."

"But you were so nice about it when I told you."

"Mn."

Wei Ying had always wondered about that. Lan Zhan hadn't recoiled, hadn't treated him differently. He'd just asked whether it was harmful to Wei Ying and looked satisfied when Wei Ying told him it wasn't. They hadn't really talked about it after that.

"I wondered initially whether the decision to keep your gift secret was the right one," Lan Huan said. "Others have had much more dangerous gifts without being a danger to those around them. Subsequent events persuaded me that perhaps your family was correct in their approach with the information they had at the time, but circumstances have changed since then."

Wei Ying swallowed down bitter laughter. Yeah, keeping his gift secret was the correct approach for them right up until it wasn't, and then he got to be worse than a necromancer. He got to be the necromancer who hid by pretending to be a normal, respectable person, and you couldn't trust someone who lied about a gift like that, could you?

"Can't put the genie back in the bottle, though," Wei Ying said. "Everyone knows what I am now. As soon as word gets out that the Yiling Laozu is here, it won't be pretty."

Lan Huan's gaze was steady. "They think they know what you are."

"I'm the Yiling Laozu and his zombie army."

"As you noted, four or five zombies is hardly an army."

"I could probably raise double that in normal corpses, with much better control."

"I'll keep that in mind." Lan Huan gave him a small smile, but it was a real one, not a polite one. "If I tell them you can't open our outer gates, that will probably suffice for the people who matter. You'll have access to everything else. I wouldn't leave you stranded outside a potential shelter if the worst happened, unless you chose to leave the compound without telling us."

"I...thank you." Wei Ying bowed. "That's more than generous."

"You'll need to work, Mr Wei," Lan Huan said.

"Brother," Lan Zhan said, a hint of warning in his tone. Wei Ying looked at him sharply, but Lan Zhan's focus was on his brother. "Wen Qing ordered him to rest and eat to regain his strength."

"I can work!" Wei Ying declared quickly. "Point me at what needs doing and I'll do it. I got pretty good at farm work when I was in the Wen compound. I can go on patrols if you need me to. You've got a verified zombie wrangler right here. Might as well take advantage of it if you're going to let me stay."

Lan Huan chuckled. "I'll let Wen Qing decide when you're ready for that. For now, my brother is correct. You should rest. He mentioned that you have been teaching. We have some children and a few teenagers who are sorely in need of some basic science education and I'm afraid our teaching staff is rather lacking in that area."

"You had good teachers when I was here," Wei Ying said. "What happened to them?"

For the first time, a flicker of pain crossed Lan Huan's face and Wei Ying swallowed. Oh. Yeah. Zombie apocalypse.

"Staff who were not from the clan were given the option to return to their families. A few chose to do so. And even with the warnings we had, it took time to fully establish our defences and our methods for...ah...."

"Killing zombies?" Wei Ying suggested.

"In the early days, we hoped to cure them," Lan Huan said quietly.

"There's nothing to cure," Wei Ying said. "Trust me. If I can affect them, there's nothing alive to cure. You're not killing anything: you're just letting their bodies rest."

Lan Huan sighed. "Yes, we understand that now."

"Doesn't make it less shitty to do, does it?"

Lan Huan shook his head, pain flashing across his face again. Wei Ying wondered who he'd had to kill, how many creatures wearing familiar faces he'd faced already. The first couple of times, Wei Ying had cried afterwards. It got easier after he left the places he knew and every face he had to cut down was a stranger's.

Lan Huan straightened up in his chair. "It will be lunch soon. If Wen Qing has ordered you to eat then you shouldn't miss it. Lan Jiayi will need your biometrics for the security access, unless my brother has already recorded those? Ah, good, then we will make sure your access is updated as soon as possible."

"But you're not giving me the keys to the main gates. I can live with that."

"Hopefully we won't need to test that," Lan Huan said with a thin smile.

***

A-Yuan didn't go down to bed as easily as Wei Ying hoped he would that evening, despite a busy day and a skipped nap. The excitement of new toys, new shoes--Lan Zhan had deemed a trip to the Cloud Recesses stores necessary--and the return of a clean, repaired Bunny had all conspired to leave him over-tired and therefore far too awake. Wei Ying bathed him after a supper he barely touched and then had to spend fifteen minutes trying to get him into pyjamas. When he eventually got A-Yuan into his little bed, A-Yuan's eyes stayed stubbornly open as Wei Ying told him story after story, wishing he had the tiny stash of picture books he'd scavenged over the months that had been left behind in their trailer.

He was exhausted and ached more than he had that morning by the time A-Yuan's eyes finally drifted shut. Wei Ying didn't dare move yet--an optimistic retreat earlier had been thwarted when A-Yuan woke up screaming at being alone--so he put his head down on his folded arms on the end of A-Yuan's bed and closed his eyes, just for a minute. Just until he was sure A-Yuan was definitely out this time.

A touch on his shoulder woke him and Wei Ying blinked sleepily, surprised to see Lan Zhan standing over him. Movement made his neck hurt and he winced as he slowly stretched out the kink. There was a foggy ache at the base of his skull that didn't go away with stretching. He must have been sleeping for more than just a couple of minutes but he still felt exhausted.

A-Yuan was deeply asleep, Bunny held tight in his arms. Wei Ying tried to stand and discovered his foot had gone to sleep, too, which was very rude of it. He stretched it out and tried not to swear too much as the pins and needles kicked in painfully.

To his surprise, Lan Zhan knelt beside him and held out a hand, not quite touching his foot. Almost as though he was...waiting for permission? Wei Ying nodded, not quite sure what was happening but still just sleep-fogged enough to be unable to refuse.

Lan Zhan's hands were big and warm when they curled around his foot, holding it firmly for a minute before starting to massage. He dug into the arch, stretched out the toes, rotated the ankle just the way it needed to get circulation restored. Wei Ying had to bite down on a groan as Lan Zhan soothed away the painful prickling. It hurt in a different way, a really good way. Too good, maybe, for a foot massage between friends next to a sleeping child.

Wei Ying hoped his face looked extremely normal and not at all like there were electric tingles racing up his leg that had nothing to do with the aftermath of sitting awkwardly. Lan Zhan's hands were just so good at this and he'd never been the one to initiate contact when they were younger. That had always been Wei Ying's role in their friendship. It was difficult to know how to respond to getting a really good foot massage from the friend he'd inconveniently not realised he was in love with until it was too late. And, he was starting to realise, had maybe never gotten over.

Lan Zhan's hand started to inch up his calf slightly and Wei Ying batted at him, definitely not ready for whatever devastation that would lead to. A tiny frown appeared between Lan Zhan's brows and Wei Ying wasn't prepared for that, either. He smiled weakly and gestured to A-Yuan, as if that explained anything at all.

"I'm fine," Wei Ying mouthed.

Lan Zhan's hands stopped moving but didn't lift away from his foot for at least an eternity. Wei Ying didn't let himself make a sound when Lan Zhan finally stopped touching him, even though his foot immediately felt cold and there was a whimper climbing up his throat. He scrambled to his feet quickly, all his aches and bruises sending up flares of discomfort that he refused to listen to. He followed Lan Zhan away from the little bed and gestured towards the bathroom, barely waiting for Lan Zhan's nod before slipping inside and closing the door.

A good splash of cold water on his face woke him up properly and Wei Ying grimaced at himself in the mirror. He was a grown adult, not a hormonal teenager. Fuck, he'd had better control over himself when he had been a hormonal teenager. Wei Ying splashed more cold water on his face, relieved to see the flush in his cheeks draining away. The cold water even seemed to be helping the headache a little. By the time he emerged from the bathroom, he felt almost normal again.

The room was empty and the supper dishes had been cleared away from the table. Wei Ying peeked around the privacy screen, reassuring himself that A-Yuan was still asleep, before slipping through the door Lan Zhan had left ajar. The air outside held a sharp chill, but just like last night, Lan Zhan had brought out a warm blanket. It was folded on top of a cushion, set on the step with a covered tray between it and Lan Zhan. Wei Ying wrapped himself in the warm blanket gratefully and sank down on the cushion, relieved that there was a soft layer between his ass and the cold wooden step.

Lan Zhan uncovered the tray and Wei Ying was surprised to see a steaming bowl and a dish with a couple of buns. He was sure he’d discover they were sweet. His stomach growled hungrily and Wei Ying shot Lan Zhan an embarrassed smile.

“Guess I’m still hungry,” he said.

Lan Zhan gave him one of his “rolling his eyes without actually moving them” looks. It was probably deserved: Wei Ying couldn’t remember eating more than a couple of mouthfuls of his own supper while he tried to get A-Yuan to eat something. When he’d declared supper was done, time for bed, he suspected most of his food had still been in his bowl. That didn’t explain why he had a bowl of hot fresh food and sweets. His food must have gone cold a long time ago and Lan Zhan hated waste.

He wasn't going to reject it, though, even if part of him wanted to protest that Lan Zhan was ridiculous and shouldn't get him fresh food just because his had gone a little cold. It smelled great and he almost inhaled three mouthfuls before he managed to slow down. When he did, Lan Zhan nudged the tiny bottle of chilli oil closer and Wei Ying tried not to let his smile get too wide as he shook some over the bowl. It felt important not to let Lan Zhan see how much he liked getting treats. That would tell Lan Zhan too much about things he didn't want to talk about.

"Does that happen often?" Lan Zhan asked.

"Huh?"

Lan Zhan gestured back towards the screen inside the little house.

"Oh, right, A-Yuan," Wei Ying chewed thoughtfully for a moment before shrugging. "Probably no worse than any other kid his age. Not every night but not never? It's why I try to stick to quiet places. I don't want to make him scared of everything but he's pretty loud and zombies respond to noise."

"Mn."

"If it's too much, we can stay somewhere else. You've got to have space somewhere for us."

Lan Zhan's lips tightened stubbornly. "No. It won't be too much."

"See how you feel about that when he's done it four nights in a row and had screaming nightmares every night. You'll want us to go somewhere else just so you can get some sleep!"

Wei Ying shovelled food into his mouth quickly so he didn't say something awful, like confessing that sometimes he was so tired, he wanted to join A-Yuan in a screaming meltdown. That he was more afraid of fucking A-Yuan up than he was of any zombie. That he'd had a moment--just a fraction of one--when the zombies were overwhelming them and he'd felt a weird kind of relief that it was all over at last.

He concentrated on eating so he didn't say any of that and Lan Zhan let him. The tightness in his chest eased after a couple of minutes so he was able to swallow without feeling like his throat was on fire. Lan Zhan tipped his head back to stare up at the sky and Wei Ying followed his gaze. The stars were bright tonight, glittering in the heavens, and the moon was a thin sliver in the sky. It hung just above the treetops, big enough and close enough that Wei Ying almost wondered whether he could climb a tree tall enough to touch it. He chuckled at the thought and Lan Zhan turned towards him, one eyebrow lifting fractionally in enquiry.

"Just a silly thought," Wei Ying said. "Ignore me. You know how weird my brain gets sometimes."

"Wei Ying is not silly."

He snorted. "Pretty sure you called me that multiple times when we were kids here."

"No." The corner of Lan Zhan's lip twitched. "Ridiculous. Shameless. Childish. Never silly."

"Fine line you've got there, Lan Zhan."

"Mn."

Wei Ying chuckled and set aside his empty bowl. He tore a piece off one of the buns and grinned when he tasted the sweet bean paste inside. Wei Ying nudged the other bun towards Lan Zhan; he looked like he might refuse, but Wei Ying put on a mock stubborn pout and Lan Zhan picked up the bun.

“So, I guess I’ll be teaching here for a while,” Wei Ying said. “What do you do when you’re not hunting zombies? Sounds like everyone has a job here.”

"I teach," Lan Zhan said.

"I guess they need the help. Your brother made it sound like you lost a lot of teaching staff."

"I was teaching here before the zombies."

Wei Ying turned to stare at him. "Seriously? I thought you planned to stay in academia. Research. A lifetime of ancient poems and maybe some students if you absolutely had to as long as they loved ancient literature as much as you do."

Lan Zhan bit off a bit of bun and chewed slowly. Wei Ying waited.

"When my uncle retired, my brother wanted to change the way we teach children to use their gifts. Our methods weren't...suitable...for everyone." Lan Zhan's gaze slid towards Wei Ying for a moment before refocusing on the horizon. Wei Ying swallowed hard. "He felt that I would have insights he didn't, so he asked me to return and help him."

"Oh." Wei Ying's voice sounded small in his ears. "That's...that's really good. I bet you're great at it."

"I was having some success."

"You were?"

"Mn."

"Guess it's easier when the whole point is to get better at a gift." Wei Ying couldn't quite make himself sound as light as he wanted to. "Your students are lucky."

"Your teachers should have focused on precision, not suppression."

Wei Ying shrugged. "My teachers were doing what they had to."

"You worked out how to use your gift safely without them."

"I got lucky." Wei Ying grinned. "I had you glaring at me and calling me ridiculous and then telling me off for overworking myself. It was good motivation to figure it out."

Lan Zhan made a tiny noise that might, in anyone else, have been a sigh. A weary sigh. Wei Ying wasn't sure why he liked that sound so much, but he did. It meant that Lan Zhan cared, and he'd always been hungry for those signs of approval, even in the early days of studying in Cloud Recesses when he was sure that Lan Zhan hated him. Sometimes he wondered how he'd taken so long to realise what all his feelings meant, because, with hindsight, it was blindingly obvious. He tried not to think about what might have happened if things had gone differently that final summer, if he hadn't needed to leave and Lan Zhan had visited Lotus Pier as planned. Thinking about that, fantasising about what might have been, always left him aching and unhappy. Better for everyone if he didn't do it

He popped another bite of sweet bun in his mouth and chewed slowly.

"I should have saved this for A-Yuan," he said without thinking.

Lan Zhan shot him a look that was almost...annoyed? "A-Yuan has been fed well. You have not. Eat it."

"I've been fed so well since I got here," Wei Ying protested. "Every time I turn around, you've put more food in my bowl!"

"You have been here for a little over a day," Lan Zhan said. "You need more than a day of good food to be healthy again."

"Have you been talking to Wen Qing?"

"She's a good doctor."

Wei Ying snorted. "She's an interfering and terrifying doctor."

"Mn."

Wei Ying popped the last bite of bun in his mouth and chewed pointedly. After a moment, the corner of Lan Zhan's mouth lifted in the closest thing to a smile Wei Ying had seen all day. He half expected Lan Zhan to praise him for eating and he wasn't sure why that made something squirm in the base of his gut. He pushed the thought into the mental box where he put all the things he couldn't face yet and stomped on the lid. Hard.

The air was chillier than it had been when he sat down and Wei Ying tugged the blanket more firmly around himself. Lan Zhan started to tidy the dishes onto the tray.

"You should also rest," Lan Zhan said. "Doctor's orders."

"But I'm not tired yet," Wei Ying said, pouting. "Lan Zhan. It's so early."

A moment later, a yawn crept over him and Wei Ying couldn't suppress it. He pretended not to see the look in Lan Zhan's face at that.

"I guess I could rest," Wei Ying said reluctantly. "Maybe read a book or something. That's restful."

"In bed."

"Lan Zhan!" Wei Ying tried to pretend to be scandalised but it didn't quite feel right in his head. He sighed instead. "Won't that keep you awake?"

Lan Zhan shook his head and stood with the tray in his hand. "You will not disturb me."

"You'll have to lend me something. Books weren't on my essential supply list for the last few months so what I had got left behind in the trailer."

"You can have anything you want."

Wei Ying pulled the doors closed as he followed Lan Zhan inside. It was much warmer inside and he realised how chilled he'd become while he was sitting out there, even with the blanket. He might need to wear layers if he wanted to keep sitting outside. The other option was to sit in silence indoors after A-Yuan went to bed, but that option wasn't great. He'd always enjoyed sitting up with Lan Zhan in the evening. At one point, it had been the highlight of his life, a thing he only realised after he couldn't have it anymore.

He pushed that thought aside and started to head towards the bookshelves, but the rattle of the shutters closing made him stop and consider.

"I'll take a shower while you close up, if that's okay?" he said.

Lan Zhan made an agreeing sound. Wei Ying grabbed his borrowed pyjamas and went into the bathroom. He didn't linger in the shower but he was still aware that Lan Zhan had probably been waiting for him when he came out. It was just that he'd suddenly realised that it would feel very strange to climb into bed after Lan Zhan was already there. Hopefully it would feel less odd if he was in bed, nose buried in a book, when Lan Zhan got in.

He was reading the introduction to a book about fungi when Lan Zhan emerged from the bathroom. Wei Ying didn't let himself look away from the page, not even a tiny glance, as Lan Zhan padded across the room. There was a fractional pause, so tiny only someone who was focusing really hard might have noticed, before the mattress dipped and the covers shifted.

Another pause and then, "Goodnight, Wei Ying."

He didn't look away from the truly fascinating opening paragraph. "Good night, Lan Zhan."

A couple of minutes later, Lan Zhan's breathing evened out into the slow rhythm of sleep. Wei Ying managed to read a couple of pages before the words started swimming slightly in front of him and he gave into his tiredness. He settled on his side, facing away from Lan Zhan, and tapped the light off. A moment later, he sank into sleep.

***

Wei Ying woke with his heart hammering in his chest and his head filled with images, a jumbled mix of past and present: flames everywhere; creatures moving with jerky, undead motion; A-Yuan screaming; bloody teeth lurching out of the darkness. Screams and flames and dead things, and over it all, the absolute certainty that it was all happening because of him.

His jaw was clenched so tight against screaming that it hurt, but he could still hear soft distressed sounds, and it took him a minute to realise they were his. Wei Ying couldn't breathe, couldn't move, couldn't shake the images clear no matter how many times he tried. Something touched him and he recoiled, thrashing for a moment before he recognised the faint sandalwood scent of Lan Zhan. Without thinking, incapable of thinking, Wei Ying rolled closer and there were warm arms ready to catch him, holding him tightly as he whimpered and buried his face in Lan Zhan's shoulder.

He shuddered for a long time, hearing himself make tiny, broken noises and unable to stop even with his teeth gritted against them. Lan Zhan stroked his back, the motion soothing for its warmth and rhythm, and slowly the images faded as his heartbeat slowed. Wei Ying took a deep, shaky breath and allowed himself to stay there for another minute, breathing in Lan Zhan's familiar smell. It was grounding in a way he couldn't explain, a smell that brought back memories of happier times and pushed recent horrors back where they should be: in a box in the back of his mind marked DANGER that he never touched.

Eventually the hand on his back stopped moving but didn't move away, staying warm and solid between his shoulder blades. Wei Ying was tempted to snuggle closer even though there was no need anymore. Maybe Lan Zhan would let him pretend to be asleep and he could stay like this all night. He couldn't breathe properly with his face smooshed against Lan Zhan's shoulder, but that seemed like a small price to pay when he was being held so well and it felt so safe.

It was that last thought that made him lift his head with a small sigh. He'd already disrupted Lan Zhan's existence so much over the last couple of days: it would be selfish to insist on being held all night just so he could feel better after a nightmare.

Wei Ying reluctantly pulled back a little and searched for Lan Zhan's face, but it was too dark to see him.

"Are you alright?" Lan Zhan asked quietly.

Wei Ying was glad that nobody could see his expression in the dark. "Totally fine. Absolutely. Never been better."

Somehow Lan Zhan managed to convey scepticism through silence. It was impressive.

Wei Ying tried to soften his voice, make it sound less brittle in his ears. "Lan Zhan, I'm okay. Really. Sorry about being so...you know."

"There is no need for sorry."

"I think there is."

"Between us, there is no need for sorry."

"My list of things I need to apologise to you for is so long, Lan Zhan." Wei Ying sighed. "And it goes back so far."

"There's nothing to be sorry for."

"I--"

"Shh."

Wei Ying sighed and manfully resisted the urge to bury his face in Lan Zhan's shoulder again. He really was too good. That hadn't changed.

"A-Yuan is still sleeping," Wei Ying said instead. "That kid. Sleeps straight through zombie attacks, usually wakes up if I try to creep out of a room to pee in the night."

"He was exhausted."

"An overstimulated bedtime tantrum sometimes does that to him." Wei Ying wrinkled his nose. "Shame it doesn't have the same effect on me."

"Does this happen often?"

"Ah?"

Lan Zhan's arm tightened slightly around him. "The dream. Nightmare."

For a moment, Wei Ying was too distracted by the feeling of being pressed closer to Lan Zhan to parse the question. He swallowed when he registered it and took a moment to form an answer that wasn't a lie and wasn't alarming.

"Not every night," he said, trying to sound light and relaxed, and suspecting he'd failed. "Not never, but not...I mean, doesn't everyone have a few nightmares? The last year has been excellent nightmare fodder."

"Mn." It was an even more sceptical sound than his silence. "Will you sleep now?"

"Maybe?" Wei Ying shrugged. "It usually takes me longer to come down after. You helped. Thank you for that."

"No need for thank you, either."

"You're a weird and unreasonable friend sometimes."

"Yes."

"Ah, Lan Zhan. What am I supposed to do with you?" Wei Ying shuffled back a little, but Lan Zhan didn't release him. "I should get up, let you get some rest."

"You also need sleep."

"I slept. I probably slept for a long time. It feels like I slept for a long time."

Wei Ying's body immediately betrayed him by yawning. He was glad Lan Zhan couldn't see him but he had a feeling Lan Zhan had somehow heard him.

"Stay."

It was said so quietly. Wei Ying couldn't interpret the tone at all, it wasn't one he'd heard before. He wished that he could see Lan Zhan's face.

"I..." Wei Ying trailed off, swallowing. "Are you sure?"

"I am."

"What if it happens again?"

"Then I will help you again."

"Ah, Lan Zhan, you should think before you offer things like that. I might never be able to leave."

Wei Ying could feel exhaustion rising up again, trying to pull him back into sleep even though he didn't want to fall into the dreams again. He started to roll away and this time Lan Zhan allowed it for a moment, only to stop him with a hand on his hip and spoon up against his back. It felt warm and safe in a way he couldn't afford to think about too deeply.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying said, trying to sound like he was protesting instead of overwhelmed with affection. "Lan Zhan."

"Sleep."

Wei Ying tried to think up a good reason why this was a bad idea. Completely unnecessary. Ridiculous. Sleep's fingers tangled in his mind and pulled him under before he could voice any of it.

***

Wei Ying didn't wake up until A-Yuan poked him in the cheek. He stretched out an arm; Lan Zhan was already gone and the bed was cold. A brief wave of disappointed longing was swept away by the hurricane of a lively toddler, which Wei Ying told himself was for the best.

That didn't stop the warm flutter in his gut when he emerged from the bathroom later to find Lan Zhan back, patiently spooning congee into A-Yuan's bowl. There was a look of serious concentration as he asked A-Yuan's opinion on each potential topping and received, instead, A-Yuan's narrative of his morning so far. It was much too lovely for Wei Ying to cope with without coffee, and he let himself indulge in a moment of bitter resentment for the zombie apocalypse-induced lack of coffee in his life.

Then he joined the breakfast table and tried to behave perfectly normally and not as though his entire heart was melting into a puddle of goo. It was easy enough because A-Yuan was in a chatty mood and needed regular reminders to eat.

After breakfast, they took A-Yuan back to the daycare, where he was sad for thirty seconds about Wei Ying leaving him before the toys and new friends distracted him. Less than two minutes after they closed the door, Wen Ning sent Wei Ying a photo of A-Yuan. He was crawling across the floor with a car in each hand. Lan Zhan made a satisfied sound when Wei Ying showed him the photo, which did something to Wei Ying's heart again that he didn't want to examine. At some point, there was going to be a reckoning, but Wei Ying was content to put off thinking about his feelings and their friendship to another, far distant day.

Lan Zhan had teaching duties and Wei Ying trailed behind him to the classroom complex, Lan Huan's words about everyone having a job fresh in his mind. Apparently Lan Huan had already alerted someone that a bona fide physics teacher was at a loose end, because Wei Ying was quickly absorbed into a meeting that he emerged from with a schedule, a list of students, and an agreement that he'd teach general science as well as specialising in physics. He spent the rest of the morning working on lesson plans for the first few days of his new job, until Lan Zhan took him to lunch and then sent him off to pick up A-Yuan and have a rest. Wei Ying ended up napping with A-Yuan, and then he spent the rest of the afternoon playing in the stream with A-Yuan, trying and mostly failing to teach him to catch fish with his bare hands.

It was the most restful day Wei Ying could remember in a long time. Definitely since the zombies started rising, maybe even for a long time before that. Something about Cloud Recesses was soothing in a way he'd forgotten. He'd spent his school years chafing under all the rules and discipline, but even though the details were different, the day felt like that golden summer visit during college.

He tried to explain it to Lan Zhan when they sat on the step after A-Yuan went to bed, but he didn't think he conveyed it very well. Trying to explain properly would expose too much and trying to talk around all the things he couldn't talk about left him with a jumble of words that got tangled in his mouth and didn't come out right.

HIs dreams that night weren't as bad as the previous night, but he still woke up once with his heart hammering and his chest tight. Lan Zhan didn't ask questions, but he did pull Wei Ying back against him and spooned him until he fell asleep again.

***

The salvaged remnants of their belongings were delivered to the Jingshi a couple of days later. Wei Ying took A-Yuan to Wen Qing after an unsuccessful afternoon nap, only feeling mildly guilty that Wen Qing had to look after an over-tired and hyperactive toddler for a couple of hours while he sat in the quiet little house sorting through their stuff.

He'd taught his first classes that morning and Wei Ying was feeling cheerful about how well they had gone, a feeling that drained away as he surveyed the pathetically small pile of clothes, toys, and supplies. He started on A-Yuan's clothes, which he quickly decided could all be donated to the communal stores: the clothes he had now fitted him and his old, too small clothes were worn but not shabby. Another family would appreciate them.

Wei Ying's clothes needed a good wash and some repairs from whoever had fixed Bunny and restored his leather jacket, but they were serviceable. He tucked them away in the chest Lan Zhan had cleared for him to use yesterday. Wei Ying had tried to protest, but Lan Zhan had given him a look and he hadn't been able to find a good reason not to have somewhere to put his clothes that wasn't a pile on a chair. No excuse beyond the obvious--that he was a guest--and Lan Zhan had serenely ignored that. Wei Ying didn't know what to make of that.

None of the food had made it here: it had either been looted before anyone could retrieve it or it had gone into stores. Wei Ying didn't mind if it had. Lan Zhan had shown him where the emergency rations were in the Jingshi and it would be bad manners to hoard more than his share. Even if he did get asked to leave eventually, he trusted Lan Zhan would make sure he had supplies to take with him.

There were a couple of books Wei Ying had managed to hold onto despite everything. He flipped through his battered and much loved copy of Good Omens until he found the photo tucked inside of him, Jiang Cheng, and Jiang Yanli. It had been taken the day before he left for college. His siblings were both safe in Lotus Pier--he'd checked in the early days of the world going to hell--and part of him wanted to send them a message, but he'd promised to stay away. A zombie apocalypse hadn't changed anything about the reasons he'd left. If anything, his new identity as the Yiling Laozu made it even more important for him to stay away.

He set that book aside and opened the other, a collection of poems Lan Zhan had given him on the last birthday they'd spent together. Wei Ying ran his fingers over Lan Zhan's neat handwriting on the title page, smiling softly. That had been a good birthday. The last one he'd celebrated. Birthdays were best shared with the people you love and Wei Ying had kept a careful distance from everyone after...after he left Lotus Pier. It always felt safer for them.

He put the books into his chest, buried at the bottom so Lan Zhan didn't need to know about them.

The rest of the stuff was A-Yuan's: a mismatched set of blocks, a small stuffed pig, two little cars, a ten-piece puzzle missing a corner piece, and four thin picture books. Part of Wei Ying felt guilty that there were so few things for A-Yuan, but another part marvelled a little that he'd managed to hold onto so much when they'd been forced to run so many times. He'd managed to hold onto more of A-Yuan's treasures than his own.

By the time Wen Qing brought A-Yuan back, Wei Ying had splashed enough cold water on his face to disguise the signs he'd been crying. She looked at him sharply anyway, but they were both distracted by A-Yuan's delighted cries at the return of his books.

That evening, sitting on the step with Lan Zhan, he talked about his new students and didn't mention the afternoon at all.

***

In Cloud Recesses, it was sometimes easy to forget that the world had disintegrated into chaos. There were a few extra fences, shutters ready to slide over doors and windows, but there was a feeling of peace that hadn't changed since Wei Ying was young. He'd taken to wearing his sword on his back a couple of days after he arrived, both as reassurance and as a physical reminder that things had changed. The weight of it was always there when he was walking the familiar paths.

Wei Ying wasn't the only person who carried a sword, but it wasn't common. He'd been shown the weapon racks hidden behind screens and drapes in most public buildings, so he knew they weren't defenceless despite appearances. Cloud Recesses had the atmosphere of a haven away from the horrors outside, though, which made it feel more shocking when the outside world intruded.

It was a cool, bright afternoon a couple of weeks after Wei Ying's arrival. A-Yuan was at the daycare for a birthday party and Wei Ying had decided to take the opportunity to show Lan Zhan his bike. He'd checked it over in the early days, but he hadn't had time to really tinker with it yet and Lan Zhan had expressed an interest. The shed where his bike was stored was in a corner of the parking area where the rest of the Cloud Recesses vehicles were kept. It was an odd limbo area, protected by a heavy gate and fence, but with another high fence and thick gate blocking access to the main complex.

Wei Ying approved of the precaution: he'd witnessed what happened when a zombie hitched a ride on top of a truck and nobody noticed until the truck was inside the compound. The survivors had thrown him out when they realised he could control some of the zombies, but at least he'd been able to help make sure there were survivors at all.

He was showing Lan Zhan the modifications he'd made to the charging port on the bike when he became aware of an engine approaching. It sounded...odd. Too high, too fast. Tires squealed.

Wei Ying stood up, lifting his hand to his sword hilt as he did so. Lan Zhan didn't usually carry his sword, but he'd brought it when Wei Ying suggested coming here; out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lan Zhan stand and draw it a couple of inches out of its sheath.

A couple of people had been working on one of the armoured buses and they, too, reached for weapons as the engine approached. The huge gates shuddered and began rolling open. It had to be a Cloud Recesses vehicle approaching, but something about it felt wrong to Wei Ying. He didn't relax.

Tires squealed again as the vehicle--armoured bus--appeared round the final corner and headed for the gates. All of Wei Ying's instincts screamed at him that this was wrong, the bus shouldn't come in, but nobody was moving for the gate control panel and he didn't have the access to do it. The gates continued slowly rumbling open.

"Something's wrong," Wei Ying said.

Lan Zhan nodded, but it was too late. The bus hurtled through the gates, sparks flying as it scraped through with barely enough clearance on either side. It lurched sideways and the brakes screamed even louder than the tires as it skidded to avoid one of the parked buses. Wei Ying's heart was in his mouth as he watched it careen towards the fence separating the parking lot from the main compound. At the last possible moment, the bus swerved again and tilted dangerously, narrowly avoiding ramming the fence. The brakes made a horrible sound, but it finally stopped and the engine cut out.

For a long moment, nothing moved. Wei Ying tightened his grip on his sword hilt, but he stayed where he was. Waiting.

Then the rear doors burst open and bloodied figures tumbled out.

Chapter Text

It was hard to tell what was happening at first. All the people scrambling out of the bus were wearing the white Cloud Recesses uniform, so it took Wei YIng a few precious seconds to understand what he was seeing. Then one of the figures turned towards him and he recognised the dull, dead look in its eyes and the greyish tint to its skin.

At least a couple of those figures in Cloud Recesses uniforms were zombies.

Wei Ying's stomach turned at the thought, but he pushed that aside and advanced on the tangle of people with grim determination. His sword made a soft, metallic sliding sound when he pulled it out of its sheath as he walked. He heard the same sound at his side and didn't have to look to know Lan Zhan was with him, matching his pace. When he was only a few feet away, Wei Ying reached for the dead things in front of him.

There were three, but they were so newly dead that their flesh hadn't fully registered what had happened to it. Wei Ying could slow their movements, but he couldn't stop them. He couldn't hold them in place. He ducked under a sluggish swipe from the nearest zombie and slashed at it, but the distraction had been just enough for his hold on it to loosen. The zombie jumped away and his sword glanced across its ribs but didn't penetrate.

Dimly, Wei Ying was aware of alarms blaring and the rumble of the exterior gates closing. He shut that out, refusing to let himself think about how frightened A-Yuan must be if he could hear the alarms.

The zombie in front of him darted forward, fast because it hadn't had time to decay yet, and Wei Ying jumped back. He reached for it again, slowing it so that he had time to strike forward and partially sever its arm. The zombie showed no sign of knowing or caring, it kept moving forward. Wei Ying tried to extend his reach, hold all the zombies, while he slashed again at the one in front of him and jumped away from a swipe from its remaining arm.

Four zombies. He could feel four of them now. Shit.

Wei Ying kicked out, slamming his boot into the zombie's knee so that it started to fall. He spun away, preparing to slice at it, but there was a soft shing in the air, a blast of chilly cold, and the zombie's head was rolling away from its body. The rest of it toppled in slow motion. Wei Ying didn't check to see whether it stayed down. They always did when the head was gone.

Lan Zhan was already turning his attention to the main fight and Wei Ying followed him. It was hard to keep his grip on the zombies and fight: they were too new, too close to the memory of being alive for Wei Ying's gift to have its full effect. He was slower than he should be, straining to maintain enough influence over the zombies to keep the fight even and hold his own physically. Something grabbed the back of his jacket, yanking him backwards just before anothing soft shing flew through the air. The sudden release made him stumble forward and the zombie's hand made a sharp cracking sound when it landed on the ground. Wei Ying spun and beheaded it neatly before it tried again.

He reached again and there were still three zombies. Wei Ying groaned and threw himself into the fight.

Two zombies.

Wei Ying ducked under a clumsy swipe, skewered the zombie and then reared back when it lurched forward with snapping jaws, aiming for his neck. His sword refused to pull out, stuck on something, possibly a vertebra. Wei Ying ducked again and put all his gift into controlling the zombie, just that one, and the zombie froze in place for a moment. It was long enough: Wei Ying wrenched his sword out and swung hard, decapitating the zombie in one swipe.

One zombie.

Wei Ying stalked towards it, but he wasn't needed. Two people were holding the zombie--he recognised the people who had been repairing a bus earlier--and a young woman in a blood-spattered white uniform took its head off with her guandao.

He reached, but all he could feel was the tiny dead bodies of animals outside the complex. Several dead humans. No zombies. The fight was over.

Wei Ying bent over, hands on his knees, while he caught his breath. His throat was hurting and there was a pain in his side. The fight hadn't taken long, but he'd been trying to control zombies that fought his gift and he'd poured everything he had into that. He was drained again. Somewhere in the distance, he heard someone vomiting, but nobody was talking yet.

The alarms cut out just as he heard the squeak of a door opening. Wei Ying turned in time to see a figure tumble out of the cab of the bus. The boy looked like he was in his late teens at most and his face was ashen, bloodless with shock. Someone shouted but Wei Ying could feel the life in him.

"He's alive!" Wei Ying shouted, forcing himself to run towards the boy. "Not a zombie, don't kill him."

The boy was staring around with wide eyes. "I... they...I didn't know what to do."

Wei Ying sheathed his sword and put a hand on the boy's shoulder, squeezing comfortingly. "Hey, you did the right thing. You stayed safe. You didn't need to be out here."

"I heard sounds." The boy swallowed. "Screams. I thought if I could just get here, someone would know what to do. So I drove faster."

Wei Ying didn't allow his expression to change. "That was the right call."

"Everyone was fine when we set out." The boy turned to look at him. His eyes were wide and glassy. Wei Ying could feel him shaking. "Wei-laoshi, they were fine when we got on the bus. What happened?"

The boy knew, he had to know. It was there in his face.

"When did it start?" Wei Ying asked.

"I don't...not long ago. We were nearly here." The boy let out one tiny sob. "I shouldn't have come here. I should have stopped the bus."

"No," Wei Ying said firmly. "You did the right thing."

"But--"

"There are survivors." At least one survivor, that was more than none. "If you'd stopped the bus, there wouldn't have been any."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Wei Ying squeezed his shoulder. "You made the right call. A shit thing happened but you made the right call and there are people alive right now because you did that. Okay?"

Was the boy even as old as late teens? He didn't look any older than some of Wei Ying's former students. He should probably still be in a classroom himself. Wei Ying made a mental note to find out, but he knew he'd probably forget. Names and faces always took a long time to sink in.

The boy nodded slowly. "O-okay."

Wei Ying looked over his shoulder. Two other bus survivors were leaning against it near the rear, splashes of red blood standing out starkly on their white uniforms. He nudged the boy towards them.

"You should go and see them," he said, nodding towards them. "They'll tell you."

The boy swallowed and nodded. "Okay. And, uh, thank you Wei-laoshi. Thank you for helping us."

"Any time."

The boy stumbled away and Wei Ying watched as he was pulled into a group hug. They all looked to be crying, but he thought that was probably a good thing for them. Wei Ying took a couple of steps towards the fence and his legs suddenly went shaky, exhaustion slamming into him harder than ever now that the worst of it was over. Before he could fall, Lan Zhan was there, wrapping an arm around his waist to hold him up.

"You're hurt," Lan Zhan said, concern raw in his voice.

Wei Ying forced himself to smile as he turned towards Lan Zhan without pulling away from his support. It was good to let someone else hold him up for a moment. Maybe too good, but he'd think about that another day.

"I'm fine," Wei Ying said. "Just tired. Zombies are exhausting."

"You're bleeding," Lan Zhan said.

"Am I?" Wei Ying frowned, but he didn't feel much pain. Just the expected bruises and strains from rough-housing with the undead. "It's not mine. Pretty sure it's not, anyway."

"Wei Ying." A tiny frown appeared. "How can you be sure?"

Wei Ying tilted his head slightly. "Are you worried I got bit?"

The corners of Lan Zhan's mouth turned down. "There's a lot of blood."

"How do I know you didn't get bitten?"

There were only a few splashes of blood on Lan Zhan's clothes, but bites didn't have to bleed much to make someone a zombie.

"You could just let me test you all instead of standing there like zombie bait."

Wei Ying looked up to find Wen Qing had arrived at some point. She was standing at the gate to the main complex. The gate was still shut and there were several people behind her, all carrying an array of weapons. In his exhausted state, he hadn't noticed that Lan Zhan was steering them that way.

Wen Qing held up a small tray with a rack of vials on. "New protocol. Nobody comes in without a clear test."

Wei Ying nodded. "Good protocol."

"Glad you think so." Wen Qing frowned. "If I could make these easier to transport, I'd extend the protocol to nobody getting in a vehicle without testing."

They had to open the gate to pass the tray through. Wei Ying was glad that the people surrounding Wen Qing were all heavily armed and they slammed the gate shut as soon as one of the mechanics took the tray. "Never take any chances with security" had become his mantra over the last year. Too many people fucked around and found out at a high price.

"Don't reuse anything!" Wen Qing called out as everyone lined up to grab a vial. "That includes the damn needles. You really want cross-contamination on this?"

"It's the saliva that's infectious, not the blood," somebody muttered.

Wei Ying was too tired to lecture him on why that wasn't the point. From the look in Wen Qing's eye, he thought that lecture was going to be given anyway.

"Give the test thirty seconds to stabilise after you add the blood," Wen Qing said. "Blue is good, yellow is not good. Clear means you fucked up and you'll need a fresh set to try again."

It took less than thirty seconds for Wei Ying's test to turn bright blue. Lan Zhan still had an arm around his waist, which Wei Ying definitely felt some kind of way about but he was too tired to process those feelings right now. He helped Lan Zhan to prick a thumb; his test turned blue just as fast as Wei Ying's. It was a relief to see everyone holding a bright blue vial when they lined up at the gate again. Wei Ying was too tired to fight any more zombies today.

Everyone filed through as another group walked towards them. They were wheeling a covered cage that Wei Ying guessed was carrying the supplies they needed for dealing with the bodies. He wondered how someone ended up on that detail, then decided not to think about it. Given his gift, he suspected Lan Huan wouldn't be putting him on body disposal duty. He might be trusted up to a point, but giving a famous necromancer unrestricted access to dead bodies wouldn't be a good look.

Wei Ying half-heartedly tried to push Lan Zhan away so he could walk on his own, but Lan Zhan pointedly refused and Wei Ying had to admit that the help was good. His legs felt shaky and his head was starting to throb uncomfortably. Wen Qing fell back to pace on his other side, looking at him sharply.

"How much of that blood is yours?" she asked.

Wei Ying pouted. "Barely any of it! Why doesn't anyone believe me?"

"Because we've met you." Wen Qing shook her head. "You drained yourself again, didn't you?"

"Fresh zombies are hard to control," Wei Ying said. "You know that."

"Has he been resting?"

"Sometimes," Lan Zhan said.

Wei Ying gasped at him. "Such slander! A terrible slur against my character.! I've been resting so much, you know I have."

Lan Zhan's expression didn't change. "You sleep poorly."

"Not that badly. I usually sleep much worse." Wei Ying managed to stop himself from telling the whole truth, that he slept much better in Lan Zhan's arms than he had for a long time, but he thought Wen Qing knew. He could feel himself flushing. "Anyway, rest isn't all about sleep."

"Mn."

"Is he eating properly?"

Lan Zhan nodded. "Yes. Three meals and snacks."

"Good."

"You both know I'm a fully grown adult capable of figuring out sleep and food all by myself? Been doing it for years!"

The looks he got from both sides were so similar that he had to swallow down a hysterical giggle. He didn't think either of them would appreciate knowing what they'd done and, honestly, he didn't want them to gang up on him any more than they already had. He preferred Lan Zhan's gentler form of bullying over Wen Qing's painfully sharp attention, but ideally he shouldn't need either. He was a perfectly functional adult, thank you very much.

"You've got the test time down," he said, hoping it would distract Wen Qing from further prying.

Wen Qing eyed him for a moment before apparently deciding this was a battle she didn't need to fight. "Fifteen seconds usually, but if I say that then people say it's not working after five seconds."

"Aiyo, why are people like that?"

"Because they're scared," Wen Qing said.

"Oh." Wei Ying grimaced. "Guess that makes sense."

"Not everything is about people being assholes."

"But so much is."

Wen Qing's smile was sharp and gone in an instant, but Wei Ying grinned at her anyway.

"I could probably design something more transportable," he said. "You know, for the vehicle protocol issue."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." He grimaced. "Today wouldn't have happened if they'd tested earlier."

Wen Qing nodded, looking tired. "I know. There were survivors, though. It could have been worse."

"It could have been better."

They reached the place where the path to the medical centre split off from the one they were following and stopped. Exhaustion was dragging at Wei Ying and he ached everywhere, but he'd felt worse. Wen Qing wouldn't waste energy healing a few strained muscles.

"We should get A-Yuan," he said, hoping she'd take the correct hint.

Wen Qing shook her head. "You should go home, get cleaned up and have a rest before A-Ning brings him home to you."

"But--"

"You look like a horror show," Wen Qing said bluntly. "You want him to see you looking like that?"

"Wei Ying." It was the first thing Lan Zhan had said in a while. "A-Yuan was in the safest place he could be."

"But--"

"The building locked down the moment the alarms went off," Wen Qing said. "Lan Zhan is right, it's the safest place in Cloud Recesses."

Wei Ying swallowed hard. He met Lan Zhan's eyes and saw only reassurance and sincerity there. Lan Zhan's eyes were so warm, so lovely.

Wen Qing coughed and Wei Ying startled, feeling his face heat. Lan Zhan's arm tightened around his waist for a moment, as if he was afraid Wei Ying would fall over, and Wei Ying's face felt even hotter.

"Okay, okay, I guess I'm not getting a choice here," he said, trying to sound grumpy instead of slightly breathless. He wasn't sure how well it worked. "Give me an hour and I'll be presentable again."

"You're getting two," Wen Qing said. "Doctor's orders. Rest so you don't fall down in front of A-Yuan."

Wei Ying wanted to protest, but his head was throbbing so much it felt like it might explode soon and his legs were definitely shakier than they should be. All he could do was wave tiredly and allow Lan Zhan to help him away.

***

Wei Ying startled awake to the sound of screaming. High-pitched, terrified screaming. For a moment, his sleep-addled brain couldn't parse what it was or where he was. Instinctively, he reached out but there were no zombies. The only dead things were a few long-rotted corpses of small mammals somewhere beyond the walls. No zombies, but the screaming continued.

Something moved next to him and everything flooded back to him. That was Lan Zhan stirring next to him. They were in his bed, in the Jingshi. It was pitch-black because it was night and the shutters were down. His head was hurting because he'd tried to control fresh zombies and he'd overextended, again. Everything else was hurting because he'd fought the fresh zombies.

A-Yuan was screaming. A nightmare. Despite everything they'd done to reassure him after Wen Ning brought him back, despite the safety and protection in the daycare, the day's attack had pulled memories into his dreams.

Wei Ying fumbled and managed to hit the metal base of the bedside light. He squinted against the soft glow until his eyes adjusted. Lan Zhan was looking up at him with a small, worried frown and, for a moment, the urge to burrow in closer and hide in Lan Zhan's arms was almost overwhelming. He couldn't, A-Yuan needed him too much, but he was so tired and Lan Zhan was so good at holding him.

"I'll get him," Wei Ying said and slipped out of the bed before he gave into the temptation.

A-Yuan didn't stop screaming when Wei Ying peeked around the privacy screen: he was too deep into his fear, into the nightmare of his memories. Wei Ying could sympathise. He'd had his fair share of nights like this and Lan Zhan was the only reason he'd been able to shake them off. Before they came here...Wei Ying pushed that thought aside.

He knelt down by the small bed and touched A-Yuan's shoulder, wary of startling him: the kid could hit hard when he was in a state like this. A-Yuan stared at him for a moment, almost looking through him, before launching himself at Wei Ying in a strangling hug. Wei Ying wrapped his arms around him and squeezed hard, trying not to wince as A-Yuan scream-sobbed directly into his ear.

It took a minute, but A-Yuan's screams subsided into whimpering sobs and Wei Ying felt tears soaking the shoulder of his pyjama top. He heard a few sniffles and suspected some snot was getting wiped off and ground in, too. Ah, well, clothes would wash. A-Yuan needed the comfort. Wei Ying could relate.

He held A-Yuan, rocking him gently and murmuring soft nonsense until A-Yuan's sobs quietened and he slumped against Wei Ying tiredly. It took a while and Wei Ying's head was throbbing more than ever by the time he felt A-Yuan was through it and ready for sleep again. Carefully, Wei Ying eased him back until A-Yuan was lying on the bed, blinking up at him with a tear-stained face. It made something in Wei Ying's heart break slightly; no child should have their nightmares walk into the place they lived, attack the people they trusted.

"Feeling better?" Wei Ying said quietly.

A-Yuan nodded. Then shook his head.

Wei Ying chuckled. "Yeah, I guess that's fair. Bad dream?"

A-Yuan's nod was more decisive this time.

"Want to tell me about it?" Wei Ying asked.

"The bad things came," A-Yuan whispered. "They hurt you."

"The bad things aren't going to hurt me," Wei Ying said firmly.

A-Yuan reached out and touched Wei Ying's cheek. It was probably right where Wei Ying had noticed a bruise coming up when he was showering earlier. "Hurt."

Wei Ying smiled at him, trying to project reassuring confidence. "Yeah, okay, I got a couple of bruises. Nothing major. It doesn't even hurt! Lan Zhan was there and we stopped the zombies before they could hurt anyone else."

He wasn't going to mention the people they hadn't been able to save. That would just frighten A-Yuan more.

A-Yuan didn't look convinced. "We go away now?"

"What?" Wei Ying said. "Why would we go away?"

"It's what happens. The bad things come and we go away."

Wei Ying stared at him for a moment before swallowing. Fuck. Yeah, he could see where A-Yuan had got that idea. They did usually have to bug out when zombies came calling, it had happened over and over. Even when the place they were staying survived the attack, they usually asked him to leave because nobody wanted someone around who could do weird shit with zombies and dead bodies. They thought they were safer without him.

Wei Ying used the cuff of his pyjama sleeves to wipe A-Yuan's tears, trying to find the right words that would fix this. That would reassure A-Yuan.

"You're not going anywhere," he said quietly but firmly. "Cloud Recesses is the safest place on earth, okay? Zombies aren't getting in here. They've got better defence than anywhere else. Remember all those shutters and doors on all the buildings? Zombies aren't getting through that. You're safe here, baobei. Safer than anywhere else on the planet. You think Qing-jie and A-Ning would let you leave? Aiyo, they'd never let that happen. This is your home now."

"We stay?"

"Yes."

"Stay here?"

Wei Ying smiled and tweaked his nose. "Lan Zhan says this is where we're staying for now, so yeah. Staying here."

"Bad things can't hurt Zhan-gege," A-Yuan said confidently.

"Lan Zhan is much better at ducking than me."

"Zhan-gege not a duck."

"No, no he's not," Wei Ying said, biting his tongue on the giggle that was trying to surface. "But he is good at getting out of a zombie's way so he doesn't get covered in zombie grossness."

"Zhan-gege is very clean," A-Yuan agreed. "He smells good."

"He does." Wei Ying frowned. "Wait, do I not smell good?"

A-Yuan shrugged. "Smell good now."

"But I didn't smell good before we got here?" A-Yuan nodded. "Yeah, well you were pretty stinky too. That's what happens when you don't get a bath every day."

"I bath here."

"Yup, we get baths and clean clothes and good food here." Wei Ying stroked A-Yuan's cheek. "Nobody's going to make you go away, okay? The bad things can't get in here and Cloud Recesses is your home now."

"Home."

"Yeah." Wei Ying kissed his forehead. "Think you can sleep now?"

A-Yuan seems to think about it before nodding.

"Need me to stay with you until you're asleep?"

"Mn!"

"That's what I thought."

He tugged A-Yuan's blankets up and tucked them securely around his shoulders. It was pretty chilly in the Jingshi at night, but A-Yuan looked warm and snug in his little bed, Bunny tucked up under his chin. Wei Ying wished for a moment that he'd thought to bring a blanket with him. Screaming nightmares rattled his brain whether he was having them or A-Yuan. Hopefully A-Yuan would go to sleep quickly.

Wei Ying smoothed A-Yuan's hair back. The boy was clearly tired but fighting it despite his agreement to go to sleep. Quietly, Wei Ying began humming. He had a vague memory of being sung to sleep when he was a child. He didn't know whether it was his mother or Jiang Yanli; memories from his early childhood tended to blend together into a fuzzy mess. He couldn't even remember the tune, just the way it had felt: warm, secure.

He didn't know where the tune he hummed came from. It wasn't the one from his childhood, he didn't think, and he was almost sure he hadn't made it up. The melody came to him without prompting, gently wistful and somehow hopeful at the same time. He kept humming as A-Yuan's eyes slowly drifted shut, opened, closed again. A-Yuan's breathing gradually slowed until his eyes didn't open again.

Wei Ying stopped humming, but he stayed where he was for a few more minutes. Just in case. Watching A-Yuan's sweet expression as he slept.

A shiver shook him and Wei Ying realised he was so cold he ached with it. His muscles were clenching hard as he shivered again, sending bursts of pain through his abused head. Wei Ying stifled a groan and pushed himself up to standing, gritting his teeth against the way the movement somehow made him feel even colder. He definitely needed to grab a blanket or a sweater the next time he had to do this.

He scuttled across the room, swearing under his breath. At least the bed would be warm. If he could slip in without waking Lan Zhan, he'd be fine.

Lan Zhan was awake and watching him when Wei Ying reached the bed. There was a tiny concerned frown between his brows, easily visible even in the soft glow of the bedside lamp. Wei Ying smiled ruefully and scrambled under the covers, pulling them up and wrapping his arms around his chest in a probably-futile attempt to conserve heat without burrowing against Lan Zhan. Cuddles because he'd had a nightmare were one thing. Wide awake and asking for body heat? Totally different.

"You're cold," Lan Zhan said.

"No shit," Wei Ying said through chattering teeth. "I'll be fine. Just give me a moment."

There was movement behind him and Wei Ying barely had time to start reacting before Lan Zhan was there, a solid line of warmth pressing against his back from shoulders to knees while a strong arm wrapped around him and pulled him close. It felt so good. Too good. Wei Ying couldn't stop himself pressing backwards, sighing slightly at all the wonderful heat surrounding him. He was still shivering, the cold had gone deep, but he could already feel his muscles starting to unclench slightly as the heat soaked in.

"Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying said. "What are you doing?"

"You are cold," Lan Zhan said. "I'm helping."

"Okay," Wei Ying said. "That's...okay. Yeah. Thanks. Good plan, guess this can't hurt."

"I'm glad you approve."

"I do approve," Wei Ying said before he could stop himself. "I mean...uh...huh."

He trailed off, unable to find a way to make that sentence go somewhere that wasn't either suggestive or far too revealing. Better to lie in awkward silence. Maybe if he focused really hard, he'd feel sleepy. Hopefully Lan Zhan would feel sleepy soon. Someone in this house needed to get some sleep.

"This is your home too," Lan Zhan said quietly.

His voice was so close, much closer than he'd been a moment ago. Wei Ying swallowed.

"I know that," Wei Ying said.

"Do you?"

Wei Ying was glad Lan Zhan couldn't see his face. He didn't have to hide the way his eyes were stinging. "I know you mean it now, but you can't guarantee that. Stuff happens. I won't take A-Yuan with me when I go, obviously. He'll stay with Qing-jie or A-Ning. Or both of them. Do they have their own place or are they in the guest dormitories?"

"Wei Ying."

He sighed and wriggled until Lan Zhan allowed him to turn over. For some reason, Lan Zhan didn't allow him to move away; he folded Wei Ying against his chest and Wei Ying didn't have the willpower to stop it. Lan Zhan was so warm and Wei Ying was still cold, even though the shivers had stopped. The best he could do was refusing to let himself tuck his face into Lan Zhan's neck, although he couldn't let himself meet Lan Zhan's eyes, either. He focused on the point of Lan Zhan's pyjama collar.

"Some day, something will happen and I'll have to go. For the good of the community. And we can't camp out in your house forever! You're going to need your space back some day."

"I don't want my space."

"Why not?"

"I prefer my space with Wei Ying in it."

Wei Ying couldn't form words for a moment. He spluttered instead.

"I missed you," Lan Zhan said softly. "Every day, I missed you. I don't want to have to miss you again."

Lan Zhan just said it. Right there, in front of him, as if that was something people just did. As if saying things like that was okay and not everything Wei Ying had wanted to hear for over a decade and also the absolute most devastating thing he'd ever heard in his life.

"Lan Zhan," he protested weakly.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan said calmly.

"You just--" Wei Ying choked down all the words that wanted to rise up, all the arguments why Lan Zhan was wrong and couldn't possibly mean what he was implying. "You can't."

"Why not?"

"Because that's ridiculous." Wei Ying set his jaw firmly, still refusing to look at Lan Zhan's ridiculous, lovely face. "You shouldn't. Missing me is a terrible thing to do."

"Why?"

"You keep saying things about home and...and...staying. It implies...things." Wei Ying took a careful breath. "And we're currently sharing a bed and you really can't imply things when you're sharing a bed with a person. OK?"

There was a short silence. When Lan Zhan spoke again, he sounded awful. Cold and stiff. "I'm sorry. I overstepped. I misread the situation. If you'd be more comfortable, I will sleep elsewhere tonight."

"Wait, what?" Wei Ying had to look up now, had to see Lan Zhan's face and fuck, he looked so hurt. That wasn't what Wei Ying wanted, what he meant to do. Was Lan Zhan really implying the things it sounded like he was implying, on purpose, like that was something they could have? "No, you didn't...fuck, you didn't misread. It's just...you know who I am. What I am. I'm a terrible idea on, just, every level that exists. I'm a terrible idea on the subatomic level. Below that. Quantum shit, I'm a terrible idea right down to the quantum level and you're not supposed to feel any...feelings for me. OK?"

The corner of Lan Zhan's mouth twitched. "Quantum level."

"Yes."

"Wei Ying."

"I'm a physicist, trust me when I start talking about quantum shit."

"I trust you."

He said it with such solemnity, such incredible sincerity, that Wei Ying couldn't handle it. Anything he could say got stuck in his throat and all he had left was action. Wei Ying surged forward and kissed him.

It was a soft kiss, a careful press of lips, so innocent and chaste it barely felt like it counted. Wei Ying started to pull back, but Lan Zhan followed, lips slightly firmer against his but still achingly gentle. As though Lan Zhan was afraid he'd run away if he pushed too hard, moved too fast. Wei Ying could have told him that there was nothing to fear, he wasn't going anywhere, but he didn't want to. Not when he could kiss Lan Zhan back instead, a slow, sweet exploration of Lan Zhan's lips that felt like a revelation.

Lan Zhan's arm around his waist tightened slightly, pulling him closer, and Wei Ying lifted his hand to cup Lan Zhan's jaw. He could feel the muscles flexing under his fingers as Lan Zhan shifted, tilted his head slightly so that they slotted together perfectly. Warm breath spilled across his cheek and Wei Ying traced the line of Lan Zhan's jaw with his thumb.

Time felt suspended, the world outside hushed. Wei Ying parted his lips, sighing as Lan Zhan moved his head slightly and the kiss grew easier, deeper, but somehow still slow and gentle. Lan Zhan's hand slipped under the hem of his sleep shirt and Wei Ying sucked in a startled breath.

Lan Zhan pulled back, looking worried. In the dim glow of the bedside lamp, his eyes looked darker than Wei Ying had ever seen him. His lips looked thoroughly kissed.

"Did I overstep?" Lan Zhan asked.

Wei Ying swallowed. Smiled crookedly. "Not...it wasn't unwanted. It's good."

"But?"

"A-Yuan."

He saw the moment realisation hit Lan Zhan, the way the tips of his ears suddenly darkened. Lan Zhan glanced over his shoulder to the screen that hid A-Yuan's little bed.

"Oh."

Wei Ying couldn't hold in the giggle. "Yeah. Oh. Also, it's the middle of the night and I'm exhausted. Sorry. But...that was good. The kissing. It was really good. No overstepping going on, I promise."

Lan Zhan's expression cleared and softened. The corners of his mouth tipped up into one of those tiny smiles that made Wei Ying's heart flutter in his chest. He pulled Lan Zhan down into another kiss, a heady slide of lips that almost made him regret they were stopping. He kissed Lan Zhan one last time before nudging him away slightly. Exhaustion was dragging at him, making his head ache worse than ever and killing any hopes of arousal even if he wasn't worrying about traumatising A-Yuan.

When Lan Zhan cupped his jaw, he leaned into the touch for a moment. His eyes fluttered shut as Lan Zhan kissed his forehead. It was so lovely, the corners of his eyes prickled and he had to take a moment before he could open them.

Oh.

Lan Zhan lay down with his head on the pillow only a few inches from Wei Ying. He was close enough for Wei Ying to see his eyelashes as he blinked. There was a slow, tired droop to Lan Zhan's blink that matched the exhaustion pulling at Wei Ying.

"Sleep," Lan Zhan said.

"Yeah, okay," Wei Ying said softly.

He flailed behind him until he hit the bedside lamp and tapped it until it went dark. It felt oddly right that Lan Zhan pulled him in until Wei Ying could tuck his head under Lan Zhan's chin and breathe in the familiar, woodsy scent from Lan Zhan's skin. He pulled the blankets up around his shoulders, cosy and warm, and smiled to himself as sleep caught him up and drew him away.

Chapter Text

Wei Ying woke up alone in bed. As his sleepy brain slowly booted, flashes of memory swirled through his brain. The kiss. Lan Zhan asking if he'd overstepped. The kiss.

A smile pulled irresistibly at the corners of his lips. He wanted to scream into his pillow like a teenager because he'd kissed Lan Zhan and Lan Zhan had kissed him back and that felt like the most miraculous event in history.

Lan Zhan. Had kissed him. Back.

And worried he'd overstepped, even though Wei Ying had initiated it, because somehow he was worried Wei Ying wouldn't be okay with the kissing. In a weird way, that made it even more incredible because it didn't feel like the kind of thing someone would worry about with a spontaneous, seeking comfort thing between friends. That was something a person worried about when there were feelings involved that went beyond friendship.

The pillow-screaming urge welled up again but then Wei Ying heard the soft thump and pitter-patter of toddler feet heading his way. He had a moment to brace himself before A-Yuan scrambled onto the bed and bounced his way onto Wei Ying's belly. Wei Ying "oof"ed loudly--only slightly exaggerated for effect--and initiated a tickle-fight that was made much more difficult by the relative darkness in the room. He pushed all thoughts of Lan Zhan aside for later and focused on tickling A-Yuan into shrieking giggles.

***

The soft smile Lan Zhan sent him when he got in from his run told Wei Ying that he'd been right: Lan Zhan wasn't going to pretend nothing had happened. Lan Zhan didn't regret the kiss or anything else. They hadn't made promises or talked about what would happen next, but something had changed. Something good. Wei Ying felt so light, he wondered if he was about to discover a new gift for flying.

Lan Zhan brought with him news that Lan Huan wanted to meet with everyone involved in the bus incident before morning duties. Wei Ying hadn't managed to wrangle A-Yuan into a t-shirt yet and Wei Ying himself was still wearing pyjamas. There was no time to eat breakfast, but Lan Zhan assured him that daycare staff could feed A-Yuan appropriately. Wei Ying wasn't sure afterwards how they managed it, but they were neatly dressed and waiting with the others when Lan Huan beckoned everyone into his office. He even had his notes for the classes he was teaching afterwards with him. Lan Zhan's hand brushed his as they filed inside in a way that was unmistakably deliberate. Wei Ying had that flying feeling again and it was a real fight to refocus on the meeting.

It was mostly a debrief on what had happened and how, which wasn't surprising. Lan Huan was firm with the driver that he'd made the right choice in continuing up the mountain after he realised what was going on in the bus. The kid looked painfully grateful at the reassurance.

"There was no protocol for this situation," Lan Huan said. "People walked away from it so you did the right thing. It will be different next time."

Not a comforting thought but realistic. Wei Ying felt a little guilty about the soaring feeling he got in his belly every time he snuck a glance at Lan Zhan. This meeting was serious, people had died, and half his brain was chanting "he kissed me, he kissed me, he kissed me like he meant it" on a continuing loop. He felt like one of his students, all kiss drunk and daydreaming because the boy he liked might like him back.

The meeting went on, discussing different perspectives and how the situation had been handled after the bus reached the car park. Wei Ying did his best to focus and provide useful comments, which was easier when he stopped looking at Lan Zhan and stared intently at the wall slightly to the left of Lan Huan's head. Eventually a small alarm sounded from Lan Huan's phone and he smiled ruefully.

"I'm sorry to have kept you all for so long," he said. "If you could let me have your written reports by this afternoon, I will discuss your suggestions for the new protocols with the elders."

Wei Ying stood with everyone else and turned towards the door.

"Wei Ying," Lan Huan said, just as Wei Ying was calculating how to manage a not-so-casual brush against Lan Zhan's shoulder on their way out. "Do you have a moment?"

Wei Ying suppressed a sigh and turned back. He probably shouldn't look like a sulky teenager even though he felt like one at that moment.

Lan Huan smiled warmly at him. "Thank you for your help yesterday. It sounds like things could have been a lot worse without your gift."

Wei Ying shrugged uncomfortably. "I didn't do much. Slowed a couple of zombies down a bit, nothing spectacular. Fresh ones are much harder to control than old ones."

A slightly sickly twist appeared in Lan Huan's smile and Wei Ying mentally kicked himself. Lan Huan rallied before he could say anything to make it worse, though.

"Slowing them down so they were easier to contain kept people alive," Lan Huan said.

"Not everyone."

Lan Huan's smile fell away completely, a hint of pain showing before his expression cleared to something more neutral. "More than might have survived without your help. Thank you."

"I just did what anyone would do in that situation."

"It will go a long way to assuring people that you're able to make meaningful contributions to this community," Lan Huan said. "Wen Qing told me about your offer."

"My offer?"

"To find a way to make her test portable," Lan Huan said.

"Oh! Yes! My offer!" Wei Ying laughed nervously. All the stuff with Lan Zhan had completely pushed it out of his head. "Yes, I did offer to do that. I'll get right on it."

Lan Huan's warm smile was back. He even laughed, sounding far more natural than Wei Ying suspected he'd sounded a moment before.

"You don't need to start right away," Lan Huan said. "I know you have classes to teach this morning and that's just as important. However, we won't be able to implement better safety protocols without ways to take testing out of the lab, so it would be helpful if you could prioritise that work. Your teaching schedule should continue as it is, but perhaps you could set aside other responsibilities for a while?"

Wei Ying thought wistfully of his afternoons playing with A-Yuan or tinkering with his bike and said goodbye to the other ideas he'd started to consider for a post-apocalypse world. It had been nice to have a couple of weeks recovering from so many months of running and fighting. A couple more weeks would have been great, but he'd never been able to turn away when he was needed.

"I can do that," he said. "I'll get started as soon as I've finished writing my report."

"Thank you, Wei Ying." Lan Huan looked genuinely relieved. "I knew I could rely on you."

Part of Wei Ying wanted to protest that it was a bad idea, he shouldn't be relied on, but he bit the words back. Lan Huan would just say something incredibly sincere and kind, and Wei Ying couldn't cope with that from two Lans in less than twenty-four hours. It would short-circuit something important and he needed to be fully functional to do everything he'd been asked for.

***

He didn't see Lan Zhan again for the rest of the day and the kiss-drunk feeling in his gut faded as other concerns pushed it aside. He was a couple of minutes late for his first class, which gave his students--five pre-teens--enough time to start a game of "floor is lava" in the classroom that resulted in a scraped knee and a tiny rainstorm when they fell off their desks as he arrived. Wei Ying declared the knee fine without any help from the medical centre and set everyone to mopping up the water before they settled down to a lesson on logic gates. He made a note that the young storm master needed some extra work on his control.

The rest of the morning was a blur of teaching and writing his report for Lan Huan in short bursts between classes, but he took a break at lunchtime to visit the daycare and explain to Wen Ning his new schedule. A-Yuan accepted the change in plans easily, which Wei Ying told himself was a good thing and not a sign A-Yuan didn't love him. It was good that A-Yuan was adaptable and happy rather than clinging and traumatised. A very good thing.

Wei Ying got some food from the communal dining hall and immediately forgot all about it when he sat down with Wen Qing to discuss the science behind her test. They spent a couple of hours running through her work and hashing out what the minimum viable product would be for a portable test. Reusable after sterilisation was high on her list. Also, manufacturable from materials that were on-hand in most places, not just in Cloud Recesses, or which had options for substitutions. Sensible requirements for the world they would be living in for a long time while adding a layer of complexity to the design process that meant it wouldn't be something he could knock out in an afternoon. Wen Qing found him a space to work in her lab and left him in peace.

Wei Ying didn't surface from the work until Wen Qing shook his shoulder some indeterminate time later and he almost jumped out of his skin. He managed not to lash out, but from her expression, he knew they both knew how close that had been.

There was an awkward silence for a moment until Wen Qing rolled her eyes.

"I'll try throwing something at you next time," she said.

Wei Ying grinned. "Just avoid my head, can't risk a concussion until I've finished inventing your shit for you."

"Inventing my shit," Wen Qing said, rolling her eyes. "I did the hard bit, you're just messing about with scraps and a delivery mechanism."

"Inventing some shit," Wei Ying corrected. "If it was easy to mess about with scraps then you'd have already done it."

She didn't argue so Wei Ying decided to count that as a victory.

"I'm closing the lab down for the night," Wen Qing said. "You should go home."

Wei Ying blinked, suddenly realising that the lab looked a lot darker than it had a while ago. "What? I've got work to do."

"You're not going to solve this in one day," Wen Qing said.

"Lan Huan--we need this fast."

Wen Qing's smile was unexpectedly gentle. "Go home, Wei Ying. He doesn't expect you to work yourself ragged on this."

"But--"

"As your doctor, I'm telling you to go home. Get some rest. Eat something."

Wei Ying opened his mouth to protest further and was interrupted by a loud gurgle from his stomach. He glared down at it. Traitor.

Wen Qing's sharp eyes and sharper smile were on him when he looked up. "Do I have to sedate you and ask Lan Zhan to take you home?"

"No!" Wei Ying said quickly. "I guess if you insist, then I have to follow doctor's orders."

"Hm." Wen Qing sounded suspicious, which was fair. His track record for following doctor's orders wasn't great. "You should also go home so A-Yuan doesn't forget what you look like."

That thought pulled Wei Ying up abruptly. It felt like being doused in icy water and his stomach lurched. A-Yuan. How had he forgotten? What time did the daycare close? Did it close? He hadn't thought to check.

"Fuck," he said.

His notes were a disordered mess and the bench was littered with the scraps he'd collected to start trying a few options. He began shifting things around anyway, trying to work out how to organise it all so he wouldn't lose his train of thought, before giving up and sweeping everything into the large box that had appeared on the edge of the bench at some point in the afternoon.

"Hey, slow down, don't break anything," Wen Qing said.

Wei Ying looked up from his frantic packing. "I forgot A-Yuan. Fuck. This is why it's a bad idea to trust me with shit! You trusted me with an entire person and I forgot about him!"

"He's fine. A-Ning was on duty this afternoon and he'll make sure he's okay."

Wei Ying paused and took a deep breath. Right. Yes. He knew that, somewhere deep inside. They'd talked about Wen Ning's shift times when Wei Ying was there earlier to arrange the extra care for the afternoons. He flattened out the notes he'd half crumpled when he shoved them into the box and put them back more with care. The scraps of metal, plastic, and bamboo looked like nothing useful, but no worse than they'd been before he panicked. He suddenly felt incredibly tired, as though he'd been running even though all he'd done was sit at a bench for a few hours.

"Go home," Wen Qing said. "Leave all that here. Nobody is going to steal it."

Wei Ying nodded. He put the lid on the box and carefully pushed it to the back of the bench, against the wall, where it shouldn't come to any harm no matter who needed to use the bench while he wasn't there.

"I'll just...go," he said. "Thanks, Qing-jie."

He didn't quite run all the way to the daycare--he was too tired and it would just worry anyone he passed--but he walked at the fastest pace he could manage and arrived just as Wen Ning was closing the door. The building was dark.

"Where's A-Yuan?" Wei Ying asked, peering around as though a toddler might magically appear from behind Wen Ning's legs.

Wen Ning smiled. "Oh! Lan Zhan picked him up a little while ago."

"Uh, he did?" Wei Ying blinked. Had he asked Lan Zhan to do that and forgotten? It wasn't impossible.

Wen Ning nodded cheerfully. "He said it was no trouble and A-Yuan was happy to go with him. It was getting a bit late and I thought A-Yuan would be better at home, as you'd been delayed. Was I wrong?"

"Oh. Ah, no, no, that's fine." Wei Ying made himself smile. "That's great, actually, thank you. I must have forgotten that I asked him to do that."

"Maybe?" Wen Ning sounded dubious. "It didn't sound like he was here because you asked him to be. I think he just anticipated you'd need help with A-Yuan while you're working on A-Jie's project."

Wei Ying wasn't sure how he felt about that.

"He probably remembers what I was like at school," Wei Ying said, trying to sound rueful rather than uncomfortable.

"You're just like A-Jie. She gets focused on something and we have to remind her to eat and sleep."

"Not great when there's a kid around."

"You've got help, though," Wen Ning said. "You should go home."

"That's what Wen Qing said."

"She's wise."

"And a bit scary."

Wen Ning smiled. "That's why she's so good at everything."

"Yeah." Wei Ying sighed. "I'll be going then. Good night."

He heard Wen Ning's cheerful "good night" but he was already power-walking towards the Jingshi. It only took him a couple of minutes to reach the gates and something in his chest loosened when he saw the soft glow from the windows. Lan Zhan and A-Yuan were home, everything was safe and as it should be. Wei Ying took a minute to catch his breath before he jogged up the steps and slid the door open.

Lan Zhan and A-Yuan were kneeling at the low table with bowls in front of them. They both looked up when Wei Ying stepped inside. There was a wide grin on A-Yuan's face--plus a few stray grains of rice--and Lan Zhan's lips curled into a tiny smile as Wei Ying met his eyes. For a moment, there was a thick lump in Wei Ying's throat and he couldn't speak. It was...nice. Just really nice, to come home and find two of his favourite people in the world like this. So domestic and lovely that it made his chest ache a little. What had he done to deserve this? Surely it couldn't last.

"Wei-gege!" A-Yuan almost shouted.

He moved as though he was going to scramble up and throw himself at Wei Ying's knees, but Lan Zhan put a large hand on his shoulder and A-Yuan settled at once. What the fuck? How had Lan Zhan done that?

Wei Ying snapped his jaw shut and grinned. "Hello, baobei. I see you started without me."

"I was hungry," A-Yuan said, apparently willing to overlook the nickname for once. "Zhan-gege was hungry too."

"I see." Wei Ying pulled off his boots, hung up his jacket, and propped his sword in the corner. "Is there any left for me?"

A-Yuan looked down at his bowl dubiously. "No? I ate it all."

Wei Ying took his place beside A-Yuan and looked down into the bowl. There was a little rice left, but probably only enough for a couple of scraped together mouthfuls.

"You sure did," he said cheerfully. "Want me to help you with the last bits?"

A-Yuan's shrugged. "Okay!"

Wei Ying took his spoon and carefully scooped the last grains up, scraping up a few smears of sauce with them. With a wicked smile he pretended to lift it to his lips, opening his mouth wide as though he was going to eat it. A-Yuan had seen this trick too many times to believe him and he giggled, spoiling the effect. He was already leaning forward with his mouth open when Wei Ying shrugged and changed direction at the last moment. A-Yuan took charge of the spoon as soon as it was in his mouth, sucking off the last bit of sauce before handing it back to Wei Ying expectantly. Wei Ying managed to get a last spoonful of rice out of the bowl and A-Yuan gulped it down.

"You are hungry tonight," Wei Ying said. "Want any more?"

A-Yuan looked hesitant, clearly still not used to the concept of "more", and Lan Zhan spooned more food into his bowl. He ate another half bowl before he declared himself done. Wei Ying finished off the few mouthfuls he'd left behind. It didn't do much to fill the hole in his own belly, but there would be more later. Lan Zhan always made sure there was more later.

Despite the long day, A-Yuan was filled with energy and excited to play now that Wei Ying was home to pretend to be jumping frogs with him. It felt like it took forever to get through the nightly ritual of playtime, bathtime, stories and sleep. There was a thrumming awareness at the back of Wei Ying's head that soon he'd be alone with Lan Zhan for the first time since The Kiss, as his brain was helpfully capitalising it, which didn't help his patience levels when A-Yuan asked for just one more story and then another.

Eventually A-Yuan lost his battle against sleep and Wei Ying breathed out a sigh of relief as he tiptoed away from the privacy screen. The outer door was slightly open, as usual, a clear invitation. Wei Ying hesitated over his jacket, but Lan Zhan always provided blankets and that was nicer than thick leather, particularly if there was the possibility, maybe, of resuming the kissing experiment. He pulled on a sweater instead and slipped outside.

The usual folded blankets and cushion were sitting on the step, but they were next to Lan Zhan instead of the covered tray. On previous evenings, Lan Zhan had placed the tray between them. Did the blankets mean he wanted Wei Ying to sit next to him? Wei Ying eyed them nervously. Suddenly everything could have more than one meaning, every interaction between them felt loaded with the potential for getting things wrong. They'd been friends for so long and even in that heady summer before he left, everything had felt so straight forward. So simple. So easy.

Of course, back then he hadn't consciously realised what he was feeling yet, Wei Ying remembered that much. Would he have felt so odd and confused if he'd worked it out back then? Probably, he admitted to himself. If he'd understood what he was feeling back then, he probably would have acted like even more of an idiot than he'd achieved as a clueless kid. He'd been bad enough when he just thought Lan Zhan was the best person in the world and he wanted to spend every possible minute together. Adding a heavy dose of self-consciousness on top of the yearning and lust would have made everything so much worse. So much rawer.

They'd shared a bed on that visit! Wei Ying still sometimes wanted to shake his younger self while also admiring how stubbornly he'd remained oblivious. It was hard enough sleeping next to Lan Zhan as an adult who had long since come to terms with his feelings and wants. If he'd realised how he felt back then, well, there's no way he would have slept next to Lan Zhan for a full two weeks without making his feelings very obvious in probably the most embarrassing way possible. He hadn't been a subtle kid back then.

Wei Ying realised he'd been standing at the top of the steps for too long when Lan Zhan twisted round to look at him, one eyebrow slightly raised. Heat rushed to Wei Ying's face. He covered it by smiling brightly--too brightly?--and almost falling down the steps in his hurry to look normal.

Maybe his subtlety levels hadn't improved much over the last decade.

Lan Zhan's lips twitched suspiciously but he didn't laugh. Wei Ying wrapped the blankets around his shoulders and sat down. He wasn't quite pressed against Lan Zhan's shoulder, he didn't feel that confident, but there wasn't much space between them. Lan Zhan didn't try to shift away and Wei Ying took encouragement from that. Lan Zhan had never been much for subtlety either, at least as far as his personal space--and his distaste for people being in it when he didn't want them to be--was concerned.

Wei Ying drew in a deep breath of clean mountain air while Lan Zhan retrieved his bowl from the covered tray next to him. It smelled good up here, it always had. Above them, the stars were bright and the moon was almost full.

The bowl Lan Zhan handed him didn't contain the rice he was expecting: thick noodles swam in steaming broth with a softly poached egg crowning the dish. It smelled spicy and Wei Ying thought he could see bamboo shoots peeking out of the noodles.

"What's this?" he asked before he could stop himself.

"Dinner," Lan Zhan said.

"I can see that, but it's not what you and A-Yuan had," Wei Ying said. He took the chopsticks Lan Zhan passed him. "Where did it come from?"

"The kitchens," Lan Zhan said.

"Pretty sure the communal kitchen doesn't make this."

Lan Zhan didn't reply. He tipped his face up to look at the sky. There was a hint of pink at the tips of his ears. Wei Ying stared at him for a moment, trying to read him, but it was clear that Lan Zhan had no intention of elaborating and the food smelled too good to go to waste. Wei Ying made softly appreciative noises as he ate, amused when he noticed that Lan Zhan's ears were turning pinker each time. He didn't even have to exaggerate: the food was delicious, spiced just enough to make his lips tingle without drowning the deeper flavours in the broth. The egg was perfect. There was a warmth building in his chest as he ate that had nothing to do with the food.

When he'd drunk the last bit of the broth, he sighed happily. "That was amazing. Thank you."

"No need for thanks," Lan Zhan said.

"I'm thanking you anyway."

Lan Zhan took the bowl and held out a steaming cup. For a while, they drank tea in comfortable silence and the questions clamouring in Wei Ying's head quietened.

"Back then, I really enjoyed this," Wei Ying said eventually.

Lan Zhan made a questioning sound.

Wei Ying chuckled. "Remember the trip I made up here that last summer? We used to sit out here every evening. You even let me smuggle wine in. I really enjoyed those evenings. I thought about them a lot after...after."

"Where did you go?" Lan Zhan said.

"Ah?"

Lan Zhan blinked, a tiny frown appearing. "That's not--that's the wrong question. When you left. Why did you go so far away?"

"Why didn't I come here, you mean?"

Lan Zhan didn't say anything but he didn't have to.

Wei Ying pressed his lips together for a moment, swallowing hard. He'd known since the moment he stepped out of the bus in Cloud Recesses that he'd have to tell the story eventually, but he'd been hoping it could wait a while. Maybe a long while. As long as Lan Zhan didn't ask, he didn't have to volunteer to tell it and that was fine by him. Except now Lan Zhan was asking and they were on the brink of something new and potentially wonderful. He couldn't put it off, not if he wanted everything that their kiss promised to become.

He took a careful breath. "I didn't...what did they tell you? About what happened?"

"A story I did not believe," Lan Zhan said. "The Jiangs knew about your gift: you didn't deceive them."

Wei Ying shrugged. "I guess that part was a lie. The rest wasn't."

"Impossible."

Wei Ying raised an eyebrow. "You don't think I'd raise every corpse I could find if I really needed to and fuck the consequences?"

Lan Zhan hesitated before his shoulders sagged slightly. "I believe that. I don't believe you'd do so on a whim."

"It wasn't exactly a whim." There was an expectant silence. Wei Ying wetted his lips, wishing the cup in his hand contained something stronger than tea. "OK, guess it's time for you to get the whole story. I owe you that much. You might not want me to stay after you hear it."

"Unlikely."

It was nice to hear the certainty in Lan Zhan's voice even though Wei Ying wasn't sure he could trust it yet. Lan Zhan didn't lie, that was one of his things, but Wei Ying was trying to be realistic: the story was awful and he wouldn't blame Lan Zhan if he was horrified. It would suck beyond everything if he had to leave after telling this story. He wouldn't blame Lan Zhan one bit for it, though.

He took a deep breath, trying to work out where to start. "Remember how A-jie got engaged during finals week?" He wrinkled his nose. "I guess when you've graduated college already, finals week isn't a big deal and it doesn't seem like the worst timing ever to get engaged."

"Exam schedules are less pressing outside the academic environment."

"Very true. I wouldn't know, I've never lived outside the academic environment for long enough to notice." He grimaced. "Until now, anyway. Zombies do a number on the exam schedule."

"They can be distracting."

Wei Ying chuckled, feeling a little of the tension falling away from his shoulders. It was probably what Lan Zhan intended and he leaned against Lan Zhan's side for a moment before he caught himself and straightened up.

"So, A-jie got engaged and Auntie Yu decided to throw a massive engagement party near the end of the summer. Guess there was a lot riding on it, because she invited everyone and they were all staying at Lotus Pier for a week." Wei Ying rolled his eyes. "I didn't get a plus one or I would have brought you along."

"You mentioned that once or twice while you were here."

Wei Ying nodded. "Yeah, I probably did. That sounds like something I'd do. Anyway, that meant Auntie Yu invited every Jin in the world." At Lan Zhan's sceptical sound, Wei Ying shrugged. "Maybe not all of them. But every Jin related to that peacock Jin Zixuan she could feasibly invite got invited, which meant all his shitty cousins. All of them. Do you remember Shittiest Jin Cousin? Fuck, I can't remember his name. He kept trying to spike your drinks at parties because he thought it was funny and I ended up doing, like, twelve shots at that dance in our first year at college because he kept putting them in front of you and someone had to drink them."

It was the worst hangover Wei Ying could remember in his life, but it had been better than the night he hadn't noticed Shittiest Jin Cousin putting vodka into Lan Zhan's orange juice. Lan Zhan was an adorably dopey and uncontrollably chaotic drunk. It had been exhausting trying to keep Lan Zhan out of trouble and Lan Zhan had looked so mortified the next day. If Wei Ying had to endure the worst hangover of all time to prevent that happening again, he would.

"Jin Zixun."

"Huh?"

"Shittiest Jin Cousin. Jin Zixun."

"Right." Wei Ying nodded. "Sounds familiar. Not going to remember it. I try to only retain useful information and I'm hoping this is the last time in my life I think about him."

"A wise policy."

"I think so." Wei Ying took a gulp of lukewarm tea. "There was this evening during the engagement week festivities. Another party, lots of networking, totally boring, so a bunch of us went out to the lakeshore to have our own gathering. Nothing wild, just some drinks around a firepit. Except Shittiest Jin Cousin was being an asshole, even more assholey than usual, so A-jie and a couple of her friends decided to go out on one of the piers to get away from him and talk. I remember thinking that was a really good idea and wishing you were there so we could go off and do the same thing."

He peeked at Lan Zhan out of the corner of his eye. There was a tiny, pleased smile at the corners of his mouth, so small that Wei Ying might not have noticed if he hadn't spent most of his teen years studying Lan Zhan's face to learn every subtle expression that appeared there.

Wei Ying sipped his tea again. "Shittiest Jin Cousin decided to rank everyone's powers, except apparently the only gifts he thought were worthwhile were the ones with destructive capabilities. So Jiang Cheng's lightning was a solid nine on his scale even though it only works when there's a storm around. The peacock's telekinesis was a six because it was cool but he couldn't move anything heavier than a couple of bricks. He was getting everyone to demonstrate their gifts, just to confirm his ranking. And then he got to my gift."

He stared down into his half empty mug. Sometimes he still dreamed about it, the jeering voices and the way everyone had been staring at him.

"Jiang Cheng tried to deflect, but Shittiest Jin Cousin didn't know how to shut up. He was pushing and pushing, spouting off crap about how my gift was so useless and it's not like anyone could even confirm I had one, even though I'd studied in Cloud Recesses. And he was right! How do you prove that I can read an animal's mind? You can't, that was the whole point in picking that as my cover story power!" A thought struck him and he turned to Lan Zhan sharply. "Is that the cover you've given your precog girl?"

Lan Zhan inclined his head.

"One day someone really will be able to read animal minds and nobody will believe them."

"We do have someone with that gift here," Lan Zhan said.

"Shit, really?"

"Mn." Lan Zhan tilted his head slightly. "It is closer to empathy than true mind reading."

"Huh. Any animal?"

"Mammals and birds."

"Mammals but not human mammals. Have they had a chance to read an ape? Or a chimp?"

"Wei Ying."

He blinked. Took a breath. "Right. Sorry. You wanted the story, not a massive tangent into scientific inquiry."

"Mn."

"I'll be coming back to it later."

"I know. The story first."

"Fine." Wei Ying sipped more tea. "Shittiest Jin Cousin didn't let it go. It was like I'd personally offended him by not having a really showy gift. He kept niggling at it and I was being so good, Lan Zhan. Didn't reach for anything, even though we were on a beach and there were definitely small dead bitey things I could have sent his way. He got so annoyed and he started setting shit on fire, because his gift was a ten on his scale and he could make really great fires. He'd even figured out fireballs!"

Lan Zhan's eyes were wide with alarm and Wei Ying saluted him with the mug.

"You can see where this is going? Yeah. It had been really dry that summer so everything was ready to go up. That's why we'd put the firepit on the beach and made really sure the area was clear. And Shittiest Jin Cousin threw fireballs all over the place. Stuff caught fire. He even managed to set lotus leaves on fire, that's how fucking...over the top he was with it. So much fire and he just stood there asking what the problem was, we were by a lake. Lots of water to put the fires out! As though the peacock could transport enough water with his mind to put out all of those fires. Jiang Cheng's lightning would have just made things worse. Everyone down there had gifts that were useless for putting out fires, but Shittiest Jin Cousin didn't get it. He kept screaming about how we lived by a lake, some of us must have water gifts. As if where someone grows up dictates the kind of gift you get."

"Foolish."

"That's one word for it." Wei Ying realised his hands were clenched so tightly around his mug that his knuckles had turned white. He couldn't make them loosen. "A couple of people ran off to the main house to raise the alarm. By that stage, a lot of trees were burning and then someone realised the piers were on fire."

He heard the tiny sound Lan Zhan made when he put that together.

"Most of the boats were on fire, too," Wei Ying continued. "A-jie was still out there and her pier was on fire. She could swim and the lotus fires weren't too bad, but she wasn't a strong swimmer and her friends couldn't swim at all. She wasn't strong enough to rescue-swim with them and she wouldn't leave them. Nobody could get to her. We couldn't get down to the water edge because of all the fires. Shittiest Jin Cousin was panicking by then and his control was not good, so he kept sending out sparks and starting more fires. Everyone was busy trying to stamp those out before they made everything worse and I was trying to figure out how I could get out to A-jie but there was no way to get there from where I was standing."

Sometimes when he dreamed about that night, he thought he could see a way through the flames. A way that hadn't been there on the night. It was almost worse to see another way to rescue her because it left him swimming in doubt about what happened next.

"There was a burial ground nearby," Wei Ying said, focusing intently on his mug. "Nothing recent, I think the last burial had been at least a decade before, but it's always been easier to control the older corpses. I knew the corpses could get through, so I did what I had to. I reached out and grabbed every dead thing I could find. Think I grabbed a bunch of stuff in the lake, too. I took everything I could find and I rescued A-jie and her friends. They made it to a safe bit of the shore about five seconds before I lost control and passed out."

Wei Ying took a shuddering breath. He swallowed the last mouthful of tea. Lan Zhan was silent beside him. After a long minute, Wei Ying dared to turn slightly and look at him. There was no horror on Lan Zhan's face, only warm understanding. It made tears prick at Wei Ying's eyes and he had to blink furiously and swallow hard before he could continue.

"I was out for a couple of hours and everything had been decided by the time I woke up. Uncle Jiang and Auntie Yu needed A-jie's engagement. Business hadn't been good for a while and the Jins were offering them a lifeline. A-jie and the peacock didn't know about the deal, they really did love each other, but Lotus Pier was on the line and the Jins didn't want their son marrying into a family with a necromancer hiding in the middle. Auntie Yu explained it all to me, the story they were going to tell and why. They just needed me to quietly disappear. Auntie Yu had my bag packed and she told me the story was already circulating. I could disappear, never contact them and anyone who knew me again, or I could go on suppressors and sit in a room like a vegetable for the rest of my life. I don't think it mattered to her which I picked as long as she could tell the Jins that the necromancer who had conned her into fostering him was gone."

He'd seen someone on suppressors once. It only took a couple of weeks to kill a gift and the effect was permanent. The stuff built up in the brain and couldn't be removed. Theoretically a good idea for someone with a gift that was too dangerous or uncontrollable, but the death of the gift took everything else away that made someone a person. Wei Ying sometimes had nightmares about that, too.

"You disappeared," Lan Zhan said quietly.

"It was the best option."

"You could have come here."

"I had a few clothes, my ID, and that was it. No phone, no bank cards. Auntie Yu dropped me off thirty miles from Lotus Pier and shoved some cash at me. It was the middle of the night, the middle of nowhere. I started walking and I just...kept going. Coming here would have been the opposite of disappearing and it would have taken me days. I didn't have your number, it was in my phone--I never expected I'd need to memorise it."

"Wei Ying."

"And I didn't..." Wei Ying bit his lip, but he'd come this far. Might as well say it all. "You knew what my gift was, in theory, but that's different from knowing I'd raised an entire burial ground and sent it marching. I was...scared. That I'd disgust you. That you'd hate me."

"I could never hate you."

Wei Ying's throat was tight and his eyes were still hot and prickly. His fingertips were going numb where he was clutching his mug and he couldn't tear his gaze away from Lan Zhan's face. No matter how hard he searched, he couldn't see a trace of horror in Lan Zhan's eyes, only warmth and something that he couldn't hope for yet.

"I walked for days," Wei Ying said, hearing the thickness in his voice. "Ran out of money pretty fast, even though I was only using it to buy food and stay in the shittiest motels, but I kept walking. Eventually I couldn't walk any further so I stopped for a while, took crappy cash-in-hand jobs here and there, bought some new shoes and walked on. Moved around like that for a year or so, until I got sick and ended up in a shelter. They were great and helped me figure some things out. None of them had gifts and they didn't know anything about them, so it was sort of like a fresh start. They helped me find somewhere to live and a shitty but not actually illegal job. It turned out that I was eligible for some government programmes and most of my college credits could be transferred, so I finished a degree and got a teaching licence. Not my original plan, but I had a guaranteed teaching job at the end. More like a required teaching job because of the programme that paid for it." He shrugged. "And that's how I became a physics teacher instead of an astrophysicist."

He swallowed hard. "So. There's the story. I'm sorry I didn't try to contact you but...by the time I was back on my feet, staying gone seemed like the best thing for everyone."

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan said softly.

It made Wei Ying's chest ache, the way Lan Zhan said his name. Lan Zhan slowly reached out, as if he was approaching a nervous animal, and Wei Ying wanted to laugh except that would probably make him cry. With infinite gentleness, Lan Zhan tugged the mug out of his hands and set it aside. Wei Ying couldn't breathe as Lan Zhan shifted, turning towards him more fully, and pulled him into a hug.

Lan Zhan's arms were so tight around him, it almost crushed the breath out of him. Wei Ying had one frozen moment where he wasn't sure what to do, but then instinct took over and he clung back, burying his face in Lan Zhan's neck. The strength of Lan Zhan's arms around him and Lan Zhan's scent in his nose finally tipped him over the edge: sobs tore at his throat and shook his body as he cried out all the remembered pain and hurt. Lan Zhan held him through it, a rock in the storm anchoring him safely until it subsided. Wei Ying could feel the fabric under his face soaking with his tears and he was powerless to stop it. All he could do was hold on until the worst of it passed.

Even when the sobs quietened into occasional hiccups, Wei Ying stayed where he was. Lan Zhan's hand was petting soothing circles on his back and it felt good to just sit, to allow himself to be held and comforted, just like they did after a nightmare except without the excuse of the dark and the quiet. He could feel himself shivering--the blankets had slipped away at some point--and he buried his face deeper in Lan Zhan's neck as though that would chase away the cold. He didn't want to move. It felt warm and peaceful hiding there.

Something brushed his hair, it might have been lips planting a gentle kiss, but he couldn't be sure. They'd never kissed before last night. He felt Lan Zhant take a deeper breath and he clung a little tighter as Lan Zhan's hand stopped moving on his back.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan said quietly.

"Hm?"

"You are cold."

"'M fine."

A shiver shook him, betraying him. There was a puff of warmth over his ear, as though Lan Zhan had laughed, and it sent a different kind of shiver down his spine.

Lan Zhan nudged him upright and Wei Ying grumbled under his breath as he went, but he couldn't pretend that he hadn't developed a nasty crick in his side and neck from the awkward angle. He grabbed for the blankets that had pooled behind him, shooting Lan Zhan a startled look when their fingers tangled together on them. Lan Zhan tugged the blankets out of his hands and somehow managed to get them wrapped around both their shoulders, trapping him in a way that didn't feel constricting at all. Wei Ying sighed and leaned into him, resting his head on Lan Zhan's shoulder. Lan Zhan's arm was around his waist, his hand huge and warm on his hip, and Wei Ying liked that more than he knew how to say.

"Have you talked to your siblings?" Lan Zhan asked after a short silence.

Wei Ying shook his head, Lan Zhan's shirt rubbing against his cheek. "I promised I wouldn't."

"Things have changed."

"Not that much. I'm the Yiling Patriarch now."

"They don't need Jin support. Lanling Tower fell months ago. Lotus Pier still survives."

"Gotta love a facility that can just up and move onto an island in the middle of a giant lake where zombies can't reach them."

"They were lucky."

"Yeah." Wei Ying sighed quietly. "I was relieved the peacock got A-jie out of Lanling in time. This afternoon I kept thinking, if I can make Wen Qing's test easier to use, then it makes her and Jiang Cheng safer, right? No chance of an outbreak on their island if they've got a way to make sure nobody gets on it without a clear test."

"It would make many people safer."

"I just have to figure out about a dozen issues including all the adaptations that might be needed depending on the materials available and how to keep the false positive rate low because you know some places will kill rather than wait. Easy. Should have it ready by breakfast."

"I have faith in you."

He wanted to protest at that--people putting faith in him never turned out well--but he already knew the arguments Lan Zhan would make and he was tired. It was easier to stay quiet.

After a while, Lan Zhan stirred slightly. "There is a room here."

After a moment, Wei Ying realised he was waiting for something, so he made an enquiring sound.

"I've been using it for storage, but when I was a child, it was where I slept when I was visiting my mother."

Wei Ying smiled. "That must have been nice."

"Mn." A brief pause. "I'm going to clear it out."

"Ah?"

"A-Yuan should have his own space."

"Lan Zhan, you don't have to do that. You've probably got important stuff in there!"

There was a soft sound that might, on anyone else, have been a snort. "I haven't looked at most of it for years. If it was important, I'd be able to recall what it was."

"Lan Zhan, do you have a bunch of shit you didn't know what to do with so you just stuck it somewhere you could hide it? Is that what that room is?" The silence was all the answer he needed and Wei Ying giggled. "I see how it is. All your secrets are coming out now. You're just as human as anyone else."

"Mn."

Wei Ying considered lifting his head to check whether Lan Zhan's ears were turning pink, but he was too tired and comfortable. "I guess it might help A-Yuan if he's got a place that feels like it's his own. We could paint it and, I don't know, put up a mobile? Is he too old for that?"

"We could ask him."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea." Wei Ying smiled. "If you're sure..."

"It is his home."

"Okay." He took a breath. "That sounds sure." Warmth was filling Wei Ying's chest, tingling down into his fingers. A home. Yeah. That would be nice. "You can make him a bedroom if you're really sure. He'd feel more settled with his own space and a door that closes. He'd like that."

"Would you like that?"

"Me? Sure, I'd like A-Yuan to feel settled. He's been through a lot."

There was a soft sound that he couldn't interpret. "It would also provide privacy."

"For A-Yuan? He's a toddler. Why would he care about privacy?"

This time the sound was definitely tinged with exasperation. "For us. If we wanted...privacy."

"If we wanted..." Wei Ying trailed off as several things slotted together in his head. "Oh. Oh."

Wei Ying had to lift his head so he could see Lan Zhan's face. The tips of his ears were pink and the look in his eyes was one Wei Ying had seen before but never understood. So much fondness, a hint of amusement, mingled with a heat that made Wei Ying's gut clench and his palms sweat. He swallowed.

"Last night," he said, and stopped. Tried again. "Last night. That wasn't just...you wanted that too?"

The amusement deepened and the corners of Lan Zhan's mouth twitched. "Wei Ying. Do you often kiss people like that when you don't want to?"

Wei Ying wrinkled his nose. "Not since I was sixteen and really confused."

"I am not confused."

"That's good," Wei Ying said absently, staring at Lan Zhan's mouth. "I'm glad you're not confused. That would be a bad thing. Confusion."

The hand on his hip had tightened, a firm grip as though Lan Zhan was afraid Wei Ying might run away. That was the furthest thing from his mind. He stretched up slightly, putting one hand on Lan Zhan's knee for balance, and kissed him.

Lan Zhan's lips were as soft as he remembered, warm and mobile under his. Wei Ying didn't hesitate this time, didn't go for the chaste question-in-a-kiss. He pressed close and kissed firmly, lips slightly parted so he could taste the remnants of jasmine tea on Lan Zhan's mouth. The angle was awkward, his other hand was trapped between them, but somehow it worked. Warm breath puffed across his cheek and Lan Zhan pulled him closer, sending shivers zinging down Wei Ying's spine. If last night had been a revelation in a kiss, this was a confirmation.

Wei Ying tilted his head slightly, slotting their mouths together more firmly, and that was even better. Someone made a quiet groaning sound and he realised it was him, but it didn't matter. Lan Zhan was biting and sucking on his lower lip: no power on earth could have kept him quiet.

Time stretched out, turned liquid and warm. Lan Zhan's hand was in his hair, tangling and tugging with a slight sting that made Wei Ying's breath catch in his throat. He tried to shift closer, almost unbalancing until he gave in and slung his leg over Lan Zhan's thighs, scrambling to get a knee onto the step on either side of Lan Zhan's hips without actually sitting in his lap. It felt important not to cross that line yet, although he was a little hazy on why that was important. Lan Zhan's hands went to his waist, holding him up, and Wei Ying smiled down at him.

He'd never seen Lan Zhan from this angle before. They were so close in height when they were standing and Lan Zhan was just slightly taller when they were sitting. It was different here, looking down instead of slightly up. He could see Lan Zhan's throat move as he swallowed. The pink on his ears had spread to his cheeks and there was heat in Lan Zhan's eyes, all directed at him. Wei Ying couldn't stop a swallow of his own. He rested his hands on Lan Zhan's shoulders, drawing in a shaky breath.

"Lan Zhan," he whispered.

"Wei Ying," Lan Zhan said, just as quietly.

Wei Ying trailed his hands up Lan Zhan's shoulders, his neck, until he could cup Lan Zhan's jaw. He swept his thumbs gently across Lan Zhan's cheeks, unable to hide his awe when Lan Zhan's eyes fluttered shut for a moment before reopening to stare up at him with so much heat it was incandescent.

"Lan Zhan," Wei Ying whispered again, before ducking down to kiss him again.

It was messy and frantic this time, wonderfully filthy, and Wei Ying felt his control slipping. He wanted to slap his younger self for wasting all those evenings in their final summer--all the evenings they'd wasted at university and before it--talking and sometimes just sitting quietly when they could have been doing this. There could have been tongues and teeth, heat rushing through his body to curl in his belly, and he hadn't realised. Hadn't stopped to consider the possibility until it was too late.

He almost whined out loud when Lan Zhan tore out of the kiss, Lan Zhan was kissing and nipping at his neck and that was also really good, so good he couldn't help gasping. Kisses turned to sucking and Wei Ying's hips bucked unconsciously, almost unbalancing him again. Lan Zhan's hands on his hips urged him to collapse down into his lap and Wei Ying forgot why he'd been holding himself up in the first place.

His hands were tangled in Lan Zhan's hair, fingers clenching restlessly against the urge to hold Lan Zhan against his neck, keep his mouth right where it was sending zinging shocks of pleasure through him. Lan Zhan's hands moved from Wei Ying's hips to his back under his sweater, roaming as if Lan Zhan was trying to map the curve of his spine by touch. Wei Ying wanted those hands on his skin, considered stripping off his sweater and shirt as a hint, but Lan Zhan's mouth would stop doing amazing things to his neck while he did that and clearly that was unacceptable.

He settled for groaning softly and ducking down to trail kisses across Lan Zhan's cheek, to trace the shell of Lan Zhan's ear with his tongue. Lan Zhan shuddered under him and Wei Ying smiled against his skin, pleased and turned on in equal measure. The heat in his belly was burning brighter. His dick was hard and aching, pressed against jeans that were too tight. Wei Ying shifted, unable to stop his hips bucking forward against Lan Zhan's pelvis.

He froze. After a pause that felt like an eternity, Lan Zhan lifted his head and met Wei Ying's gaze. His mouth was slightly open and he was breathing fast. There was a flush across his face. Wei Ying bit his lip before very deliberately, almost feeling like it was a challenge, rolling his hips.

Lan Zhan visibly shuddered. A moment later, his hands clamped down on Wei Ying's hips and yanked him forward until they were flush together. There was no mistaking the shape and feel of Lan Zhan's erection even through the layers of their clothes. Wei Ying laughed breathily for a moment before he kissed Lan Zhan again, as hard as he could, kissed him so there could be no misunderstandings about what he wanted.

He felt like a teenanger again, so turned on and feverish with it that the slightest touch would send him off. He writhed in Lan Zhan's lap, searching for friction and finding it. The kiss turned sloppy, became open-mouthed gasps against each other punctuated by wet swipes of lips and tongue. Lan Zhan's hands were on his hips, on his thighs, kneading at his ass and guiding him into an uncoordinated thing that was closer to rough humping than anything graceful. Wei Ying couldn't close his mouth, couldn't catch his breath, and he threw back his head with a keening sob as he came.

He was still twitching through aftershocks when he felt Lan Zhan's hand slide between them and it didn't take long before Lan Zhan's hips rose up and he made a sound against Wei Ying's throat that he would remember for a long time.

Wei Ying slumped against Lan Zhan, burying his face in Lan Zhan's hair while he caught his breath. Lan Zhan still had one hand on his ass. That seemed like a good place for his hand to stay.

After a while, Wei Ying giggled. Lan Zhan made a questioning sound.

Wei Ying lifted his head, smiling to let Lan Zhan know the laughter was a good thing. "I just came in my pants like a teenager. I didn't even come in my pants when I was a teenanger. You'll have to take responsibility for it."

Lan Zhan pulled his hand out from between them. He made a face at it even though it looked disappointingly clean from where Wei Ying was sitting. Apparently he'd come in his pants, too,

"So much for privacy," Wei Ying said with another giggle.

"I will start work on A-Yuan's room tomorrow," Lan Zhan said.

Wei Ying kissed him for that, for the relief of knowing Lan Zhan wanted more of this. That Lan Zhan wanted the time and space that privacy would give them. Wei Ying wanted Lan Zhan to take him apart, to fill him up until he forgot what it was like to feel empty. He wanted more than a quick fumble on the steps of the Jingshi, too urgent to even get his zipper open, and apparently, so did Lan Zhan. There were so many things he wanted to do with Lan Zhan now that he was allowed to imagine them. He should probably start a list.

Lan Zhan kissed him back slowly, gently, and Wei Ying sighed against his mouth. There was no point wishing his younger self had been more self-aware. He'd found Lan Zhan again and this time he wouldn't make the same mistake. The world might have collapsed into an apocalyptic nightmare outside the boundaries of Cloud Recesses, but here on the steps of the Jingshi, it felt like none of that could touch them.

They stayed there, trading soft kisses, until Wei Ying shivered and Lan Zhan pulled back. The blankets were a tangled mess on the step around them and Wei Ying's sweater wasn't enough against the sharp chill in the air.

"It's late," Lan Zhan said.

Wei Ying smiled crookedly. "I guess it is."

"We should sleep."

"Yeah." Wei Ying shifted slightly and made a face at the cold sticky feeling inside his underwear. "Maybe a shower first."

"I will tidy up," Lan Zhan said.

"You don't want to shower with me?"

Lan Zhan just gave him a look and Wei Ying laughed. Fair point, showering together might not be a great idea if they wanted to get some sleep and avoid waking A-Yuan. Wei Ying grimaced again when he stood up, for both the gross feeling in his underwear and the stiffness in his joints. Lan Zhan stood gracefully but the careful way he stretched gave him away. When Wei Ying started to reach for the blankets, Lan Zhan took them out of his hands and shooed him into the Jingshi with a look that brooked no argument. Wei Ying shrugged and went.

By the time he emerged from the shower, feeling much warmer and cleaner, Lan Zhan had tidied everything up and the shutters were down. Wei Ying crawled into bed while Lan Zhan used the bathroom, exhaustion weighing him down and dragging at his eyelids. He made himself stay awake until Lan Zhan got into bed and then scooted back against Lan Zhan, smiling to himself when Lan Zhan took the hint and wrapped him up in a hug. After so many emotions and the lingering exhaustion from gift overuse, it felt warm and safe to be the little spoon. Maybe he wouldn't even dream. That would be good.

"Good night, Wei Ying." Lan Zhan's lips pressed against his neck for a moment. "I am...glad...you're here."

Wei Ying smiled to himself, already halfway to sleep. "I'm glad I'm here too."

Then sleep claimed him and he knew nothing more until morning.

Chapter Text

It started raining the next day, cold, miserable rain that seemed to seep into everything and even turned some of the neat gravel pathways of Cloud Recesses into quagmires. In breaks between heavy downpours, when it was only lightly raining, people on maintenance duties tried to fix leaks and shore up paths, but it was a never-ending battle. Wei Ying arrived in his classroom one morning to find water dripping from the ceiling that hadn't even had any help from his student with the localised weather gift.

Teams went out from Cloud Recesses to help other havens and communities impacted by rising rivers and endless mud. The rain never stopped for long and even when it wasn't actively raining, the air felt cold and damp. It was a sign of the winter to come, the second winter since the zombie apocalypse started. There would be less to scavenge this year, most of the supplies that had gotten people through the previous winter having long since been looted. Some communities had taken up farming and their crops had done well. Some hadn't. Cloud Recesses promised to share or trade what they could spare, but Wei Ying knew they couldn't feed everyone who would need it.

The medical centre stayed watertight and Wen Qing insisted on all outside shoes and boots staying near the door to keep the mud out of the treatment rooms and labs. They didn't have enough disposable shoe covers--now reused as often as possible before being disposed of--to waste them on people who could easily change into the soft woollen slippers some of the grannies crocheted for anyone who needed them. There were baskets of them at every door in most public buildings, with a mop beside each basket for people to wipe up with.

The Jingshi was dry and snug, but unfortunately the rain made sitting out on the steps deeply unpleasant. Wei Ying tried to argue on the first night that he was already soaked through from walking home from the lab so it wasn't like he could get wetter, but Lan Zhan just gave him an unimpressed look and turned back to cutting up an apple for A-Yuan's dessert. Fair enough. Wei Ying couldn't deny that he felt much better for a shower and clean, dry clothes.

Eating his post-A-Yuan-bedtime meal indoors, even with A-Yuan on the other side of the room behind a privacy screen, wasn't the same as sitting out under the stars. The Jingshi wasn't tiny, but it was open-plan and Wei Ying was too aware of how much his voice carried. He was mostly silent as he ate, only murmuring quiet answers to questions when Lan Zhan tried to break him out of his silence.

Wei Ying found himself even less able to make conversation after he'd finished eating. Lan Zhan poured tea and all Wei Ying could think about was the remembered taste of jasmine on Lan Zhan's lips. He sipped in silence, trying not to stare at Lan Zhan's mouth while also hoping Lan Zhan would pounce on him for a make out session.

It was probably a good thing Lan Zhan's gift wasn't telepathy, with the force of Wei Ying's thoughts. Or maybe it would have been easier if Lan Zhan could have read his mind, because then Wei Ying wouldn't have needed to find the words for what he wanted. They'd had sex--fully clothed, yes, but mutual orgasms were definitely still sex--and he still didn't know how to ask Lan Zhan to touch him.

Lan Zhan solved the problem that first night by declaring, with a sparkle in his eyes at odds with his neutral expression, that he was tired and Wei Ying should lie down with him for a while. Wei Ying was very into that. He scrambled to set his empty cup down before following Lan Zhan to the bed, where they indulged in some very respectable making out before everything descended into some deeply unrespectable humping and writhing that Wei Ying eventually had to roll away from because he couldn't forget that A-Yuan was sleeping in the same room.

The pattern repeated every evening, from the quiet supper to Lan Zhan's invitation to "rest", because Wei Ying couldn't quite make himself ask and Lan Zhan apparently could. At the end of the second evening, while they were lying side by side, not touching, trying to catch their breath and calm down before they really went to bed, Lan Zhan promised out loud to start work on the storage room tomorrow. That, too, became part of the pattern.

It wasn't that Lan Zhan was lying, but there was no time. The weather, the oncoming winter, all the requests for aid pouring in from outlying communities. There was so much to do that Lan Zhan couldn't take time off to clear out the storage room and Wei Ying couldn't make himself feel resentful about it because he understood. His own work was piling up despite the hours he put in. Word got around that there was a scientist-slash-engineer in Cloud Recesses and requests flowed in for new inventions, new workarounds for things people couldn't get anymore, and he was still struggling to get a suitable prototype working for Wen Qing's zombie test.

If he'd had unlimited resources, the prototype would have been easy. It was hardly the first portable testing device anyone had ever invented. The problem was that this device needed to be fast, produce a result that couldn't be misread, and use materials that they had on hand rather than the dozens of materials they couldn't access. It needed to be reusable, easy to assemble without a sterile lab by people who didn't have specialist experience, and include the potential for parts to be substituted depending on available resources. In short, it needed to be one step down from a miracle. Wei Ying went through half a dozen ideas before he even started building anything.

A week stretched out into two. Wei Ying tested prototypes on himself and had the tiny marks on every finger to prove it. He worked with Wen Qing to change the viscosity of the liquid, perfect the minimum amount of blood needed, punch up the colour indicators. He got his class of older students to try assembling one of the prototypes and went back to the drawing board with their feedback. He tested more options, then had his class disassemble, sterilise, and reassemble them.

Two weeks turned into three, and Lan Zhan's name came up on the rota for overnight field missions. Wen Ning's name was on the same team. Wei Ying told himself that was a good thing: it meant Lan Zhan was travelling out with the best team. He'd trust Wen Ning with his life. He'd trust Wen Ning with A-Yuan's life.

All of that reassurance didn't help much when he was holding a sobbing A-Yuan in the middle of the night, feeling a bit like crying himself, knowing Lan Zhan wasn't waiting in the bed to comfort him. Having Lan Zhan and Wen Ning both away unsettled A-Yuan more than Wei Ying had expected. He was fractious during the day and inconsolable when he woke from nightmares. There were meltdowns over the smallest things and Wei Ying felt a little like tearing his hair out when A-Yuan was screaming in his ear, almost strangling him in a hug, all because Wei Ying couldn't find the right socks for the day and A-Yuan couldn't tell him what the right socks were. A-Yuan didn't want to eat, even his favourites, but he cried if Wei Ying declared the meal was over and they could play now.

Wei Ying was grateful to have a few hours respite while A-Yuan was in daycare, and then he felt guilty that he felt grateful. He made sure to pick up A-Yuan well before daycare closed for the day and he was grateful that Lan Zhan had arranged with the kitchen for a basket of food to be delivered soon after they got back to the Jingshi every evening. Wei Ying ate his food cold after A-Yuan was finally in bed most nights, but at least he ate. They went to the communal dining room for breakfast, which was the only meal A-Yuan didn't wail over, and he tried not to think about what the daycare teachers were going through at lunchtime.

Lan Zhan was gone for four days and Wei Ying missed him so much it felt like his chest was caving in. He'd thought it was bad enough when he left all those years ago. Somehow this was far worse.

The prototype was ready for field testing on the day Lan Zhan's team were due back. Wei Ying had tested it on himself, Wen Qing, his students, and samples from Wen Qing's stash of infected blood. He was staring at the small stack of devices on his bench when Wen Qing poked him in the ribs and then smacked the back of his head (gently) in response to his yelp of outrage.

"Just do it," she said. "If you stare at those any harder, I'm worried they'll combust."

"Necromancer, not fire-starter," Wei Ying said.

"It's never too late to develop a new gift."

"It really is."

"You're sure about that?"

Wei Ying lifted his head to stare at her. "Seriously? People have developed gifts at my age?"

Wen Qing shrugged. "It's rare, but I treated someone who got a new levitation gift when they were fifty."

"Wow."

"It's harder at that age. People don't bounce as well when their new levitation gift suddenly craps out on them."

Wei Ying winced. "What did they break?"

"Both legs." Wen Qing shrugged. "Could have been worse. I sent them to Qinghe with a prescription for landing pads until they got some control."

"Bet that was a fun conversation."

"It was." Wen Qing raised an eyebrow. "Stop trying to derail. Why are you glaring at those things instead of taking them down to the gate?"

"The teams aren't due back yet."

"I just got word that they're at the bottom of the mountain. They'll be here in forty-five minutes."

"Oh."

"Any other reason you're procrastinating over this?"

"I'm fine."

Wen Qing lips pursed. "Now I know something is wrong. You only tell me you're fine in that tone when you're not fine."

Wei Ying glared at her. "Stop perceiving me."

"No." Wen Qing reached out and flicked his ear. It stung. "Stop being an emo child."

"I'm not!"

"You've been moping for the last four days." Wen Qing rolled her eyes. "Coincidentally, the length of time Lan Zhan has been gone."

"I'm tired. A-Yuan hasn't been sleeping."

Wen Qing's expression softened. "It's okay to miss him."

"Who said I missed him? It's not like he's gone forever. It's only been a few days." Wei Ying grimaced. It even sounded fake to him. "Yeah, okay, I miss him."

"Then why are you moping around up here instead of waiting for him at the gate like a lovesick teenager?"

"I'm not--" Wei Ying cut himself off. There was no point lying to Wen Qing, she always knew. "I don't know."

"Uh huh." Wen Qing's tone was sceptical. "Want to try that again?"

Wei Ying sat back in his chair, trying to look casual. He suspected he was failing badly. "You don't think it's a bit...weird? I should send them with a runner. I shouldn't hover over everyone while they test, I should just...yeah. I'll send one of the runners down with this batch."

"Wei Ying, you've tested these things on anyone who didn't get away fast enough. Nobody's going to think it's weird that you're supervising the first field tests."

"They're not really field tests," Wei Ying said. "Nobody is actually out in the field for this. They'll be at the gate. It's just like you handing them little vials and needles, except more convenient."

"Fine, the first gate tests. We'll call it a field test when you take them out on the road with a team." Wen Qing pointed. "And stop trying to distract me. You don't give a shit about whether it's weird, that's not why you're having a freak out up here instead of waiting at the gate like a--"

"Don't say it," Wei Ying said.

Wen Qing smiled. "Are you going to tell me it's not like that, you're just good friends?"

Wei Ying could feel the blush creeping up his throat and face.

"So what's going on?" Wen Qing tapped the tray of prototypes. "Why do you look like someone drowned your cat?"

"What if..." Wei Ying swallowed. He wasn't sure how to get the words out, how to explain the fear that had been tying his gut into knots for the last four days no matter what he told himself. "They were going into some of the bad areas. Black on the Zombies Run! app kind of bad. They've been out there for four days. What if some of them aren't coming back? What if..."

"What if one of your tests comes back positive?" Wen Qing said. She shrugged. "No different than if we were using the less portable version. Same procedures apply. If we validate your test out there today, we'll start sending them out with teams and nobody will be getting on a bus with a timebomb sitting next to them."

It didn't make Wei Ying feel any better. There was no way the team had spent four days in zombie territory without a few encounters, and that meant risk. More risk than most teams took.

Wen Qing reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "Everyone is coming back. I've been given an expected casualty list and nobody's dead, nobody's severely injured, no bites." She rolled her eyes. "Except A-Ning, but we know that never takes."

Wei Ying nodded. "Do you even bother testing him?"

"Of course." Wen Qing shrugged. "He just never tests positive even if I can see the bite marks on him."

"Lucky man."

Wen Qing smiled. "You should go. They'll be here soon and you'll want to get everything set up before they arrive."

"You're not coming down?"

"I'll be right behind you, I just need to get a few supplies."

Wei Ying nodded and grabbed the box to pack up the test kits. The rain today was a light drizzle, which was somehow just as bad as the lashing downpours. It didn't look like much and it was possible to run from building to building without getting drenched, but it seeped into everything and Wei Ying was soaked by the time the buses pulled into the lot. The gate was locked and electrified; the team standing behind him wouldn't open it until everyone was tested and okayed. Wen Qing and two of her medics arrived as the bus doors started opening. She bumped Wei Ying's shoulder as she came to stand next to him and watch the testing.

"A-Ning and I will take A-Yuan tonight," she said quietly.

"Why?"

"I thought you'd want some alone time. You know, as Lan Zhan has been away for four days."

"Qing-jie!"

Wei Ying could feel his entire face turning pink and hot and it only got worse when he saw her expression out of the corner of his eye.

"You can thank me tomorrow by putting my centrifuge repairs at the top of your work list."

"I'm a physicist, an inventor, not a repair technician."

Wen Qing raised an eyebrow.

Wei Ying sighed. "Fine. Centrifuge repairs are at the top of my list. Thank you."

"Just be safe tonight. We're reserving condoms for people who could get pregnant until we've got a way to make more."

"Qing-jie!"

His face was definitely on fire now, but he made a mental note to research condom manufacture later. Not that he...not that they...it might not be necessary. But. For some people. It might be necessary. Huh. A thing he hadn't even considered before.

The thought got dislodged as he finally saw Lan Zhan climbing down from the bus. Wei Ying scanned him hungrily, relieved to see that he was walking steadily and there were no obvious signs of injury. His white uniform was smeared with dirt and Wei Ying's heart stuttered when he saw a dark red stain on one sleeve, but Lan Zhan didn't seem to be favouring it as he helped a younger man down from the bus.

He watched Lan Zhan carefully as he slung the man's arm over his shoulders and helped him across the parking area to the table of tests Wei Ying had set up. Everyone filed past in an orderly way, picking up one test each and lining up near the gate. Wei Ying forced himself to stop staring at Lan Zhan so he could watch as people tested themselves, relief flowing through him as everyone appeared to understand the instructions without calling out for help. One after another, tense frowns cleared and people smiled as they showed each other their tests.

Lan Zhan's expression barely changed, but he looked up and met Wei Ying's gaze and Wei Ying knew. It was fine. No infection.

When the last person had their results, the security team stepped around Wei Ying to open the gate. They checked the result as each person filed through the gate and Wei Ying silently approved of the precaution. He stood a few feet back from them with a bin for the used tests and each person showed him the little indicator as they dropped the test in. Wen Qing's team stepped forward to check the injured and it wasn't long before everyone was marching, shuffling, or limping up to the medical centre.

Wei Ying dropped his box of used tests on his bench and then, at Wei Qing's prompting, jogged up to the Jingshi to pack a bag for A-Yuan. By the time he got back to the medical centre, Wen Ning and Lan Zhan were both ready for discharge.

There was a small cut on Lan Zhan's cheek. It had been cleaned and there were two neat white butterfly bandages holding it closed. Wei Ying shoved his hands in his pockets to stop himself touching Lan Zhan's face, tracing the edge of the cut to reassure himself that everything was okay. It was one thing having Wen Qing tease him about their relationship, it was a completely different thing to pet and fuss over Lan Zhan like a worried lover. Whatever they were doing in the privacy of the Jingshi, Lan Zhan hadn't given any hint he wanted anyone else to know and Wei Ying respected that. He wasn't sure he wanted to share it yet, either.

So instead of doing any of that, he offered Lan Zhan a bright smile and said, "Ready to go?"

Lan Zhan nodded and followed him to the door, where they paused to change back into outdoor shoes before setting out. The drizzle was rapidly thickening back to real rain, a soaking downpour, and Lan Zhan pulled up the hood on his long coat. It was dirt-smeared and needed cleaning, but Wei Ying was sure it was much more waterproof than his own leather jacket and jeans. Despite that, when they reached the turn towards the communal kitchens, he gestured for Lan Zhan to go in front of him.

"You go ahead," Wei Ying said. "I'll pick up supper."

Lan Zhan looked like he was going to argue and Wei Ying, without thinking how it might look, put a finger over his mouth and shushed him.

"I'm already soaked through, a bit more rain won't hurt me," he said firmly. "You've been in the field for days. Bet you haven't had a proper bath since you left here, have you? Go on."

A stubborn glint appeared in Lan Zhan's eye and Wei Ying shoved him. "Go! The more you argue, the longer I have to stand out here, hmm?"

Apparently that was the right tactic, because Lan Zhan shot him one reproachful look before turning to stride away swiftly. It wasn't quite running, but it was fast. Wei Ying watched him with admiration for a moment and then turned towards the kitchens. He also didn't quite run, but he was sure it looked a lot less graceful and a lot closer to running than Lan Zhan's elegant walk.

By the time he got to the Jingshi with his insulated basket of food, he was cold as well as wet. His hands were almost numb and he eyed the closed bathroom door regretfully. A hot shower would help, but barging in on Lan Zhan's bath didn't feel right. Seeing each other naked for the first time felt like a thing to be savoured. Agreed to in advance. A mutual exploration. Not a thing to do while his skin was pimpling from cold and there was a purple hue to his nail beds.

Wei Ying put the basket down and set about undressing and hanging up his clothes to dry. He scrubbed down with a towel and pulled on clean, dry clothes, hissing as they scraped over cold, damp skin. He wrung as much water out of his hair as he could and told himself he felt better already even though he was still cold and half numb.

The bathroom door slid open as he was moving the basket to the table and he turned, sucking in a quick breath. Weeks of living together had done nothing to dull the impact of seeing Lan Zhan. If Wei Ying had ever thought that prolonged exposure would make him immune, in that moment he knew it would never happen. Lan Zhan's skin was slightly pink from his bath, he was wearing a soft sweater and pyjama trousers in pale shades of blue, and Wei Ying's entire brain went off-line because he was somehow more beautiful than ever. Even with wet hair and a cut on his cheek, Wei Ying could barely breathe from wanting him.

"Lan Zhan," he said softly. "Lan Zhan."

A tiny smile appeared and the last of Wei Ying's breath escaped his lungs so fast it felt like a punch. That smile was devastating. If Lan Zhan had smiled at him like that when they were younger, even once, Wei Ying would have figured out his feelings so much earlier. He was frozen to the spot, too caught up with staring to do anything useful like move closer or even just hold out a hand in invitation.

He didn't have to worry though: Lan Zhan took the initiative. He crossed the room in a few paces and Wei Ying didn't even have time to brace himself before he was being kissed. Lan Zhan's arms were around him and Lan Zhan was kissing him so hard that he was bent backwards slightly. Looping his arms around Lan Zhan's neck was as much about holding on for balance as for bringing him closer. It was impossible to be closer. The kiss felt feverish, desperate, as though Lan Zhan was trying to crawl inside Wei Ying's skin and Wei Ying couldn't deny him. Didn't want to deny him. He took it all and returned it with all the loneliness and yearning of the last four days and the dozen years before that. He made pleased sounds when the kiss turned messy and hot, dug his fingers into Lan Zhan's shoulders to lever himself closer.

Lan Zhan began walking him backwards. Wei Ying felt clumsy and uncoordinated but he didn't fall until his calves hit something solid, then he was tumbling backwards to land on the bed with a soft "oof". Lan Zhan fell on top of him, which punched all the air out of his lungs again. Wei Ying pulled him back down into the kiss regardless. He could breathe later: he needed Lan Zhan right now. He needed the warm weight on top of him, anchoring him in place so he didn't float away. He needed Lan Zhan's heat to chase away the numbing cold, Lan Zhan's taste to sweep away the bitterness of missing him.

Wei Ying bent his knee up and out, and Lan Zhan settled, cradled between his legs, right where he should be. It sent heat flooding through Wei Ying's body and he was hazily aware that he was hard, his hips were twitching up against Lan Zhan's, but that seemed less important than the way Lan Zhan was still kissing him like he was drowning in it.

Lan Zhan's breath sounded harsh in Wei Ying's ear and he hissed when Lan Zhan's teeth caught on his lip. It must have sounded pained rather than pleasure-filled because Lan Zhan suddenly reared up to look down at him, a tiny frown marring his beautiful brow.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked.

Wei Ying shook his head, grinning. "Nope. Definitely not."

Lan Zhan cupped his jaw, brushing his thumb over Wei Ying's lower lip, gently at first and then firmer. It sent shivers down Wei Ying's spine and he couldn't stop himself kissing the pad of Lan Zhan's thumb before lifting his head slightly to wrap his lips around it and suck lightly. He released it with a soft pop and smiled up at Lan Zhan, lifting one eyebrow in challenge when he saw how pink Lan Zhan's ears had turned.

Lan Zhan looked back over his shoulder. Wei Ying was confused for a moment before understanding dawned.

"Didn't they tell you?" he asked.

Lan Zhan turned back to him. "Tell me?"

Wei Ying brushed the backs of his fingers down Lan Zhan's cheek, amazed to see Lan Zhan's eyelashes flutter for a moment. "A-Yuan is having a sleepover with Qing-jie and A-Ning. We have the entire night all alone in this extremely empty house. Just the two of us. It's very generous of them."

"Does Wen Qing--"

"I haven't told her anything," Wei Ying said quickly. "And she wouldn't tell anyone if I had. It's just a nice thing she's doing because A-Yuan had a few bad nights while you were away. If anyone asks, you know?"

"Mn." Lan Zhan looked thoughtful for a moment. "Did Wei Ying also have bad nights?"

Wei Ying shrugged. "I was up with a screaming toddler. It wasn't the greatest."

"Was A-Yuan unwell?"

"He was unsettled. Two of his favourite people were out where the monsters could get them and we couldn't hide that."

"Should he be away tonight?"

"It's fine. He's got A-Ning and he knows you're safe, but you're tired so that's why he's having a sleepover." Wei Ying wrinkled his nose. "Is that why you were so...were you trying to fuck me before A-Yuan came home?"

Lan Zhan's ears turned even redder and Wei Ying laughed. It was so good. That was perfect. He loved Lan Zhan so much.

"Ah, Lan Zhan, what am I going to do with you?" he said then pulled Lan Zhan down into another kiss.

This time it was less frenetic, less desperate, but still so deep and passionate that Wei Ying felt it down to his toes. Lan Zhan was so good at this. They were so good at this. All those evenings of making out had been frustrating but excellent practice and Wei Ying now knew how to curl his tongue just right to get Lan Zhan to shiver against him. They parted long enough to shift up the bed so their feet weren't hanging off the end and then they were back together, kissing and touching until Wei Ying could hardly breathe.

He rucked up Lan Zhan's sweater, sighing when his hands finally touched bare skin. He was hard again just from the kissing and he arched up against Lan Zhan, delighted to feel a matching hard length through their clothes.

"Lan Zhan," he said, when Lan Zhan released his mouth to suck kisses down his neck. "Lan Zhan. We are wearing way too many clothes and I refuse to come in my pants like a teenager again."

Lan Zhan lifted his head with clear reluctance, which Wei Ying made a note to obsess about later, and blinked at him solemnly. "That would be a shame."

"It would, so we should do something about that." Wei Ying tugged at his sweater. "Sooner rather than later, please."

"Impatient."

"You weren't exactly taking your time a minute ago either."

Lan Zhan nodded as though that was a very good point, and then he was rearing back to pull off his sweater. Wei Ying was caught up watching him for a moment before scrambling to strip as fast as he could. It wasn't elegant and he suspected it wasn't exactly sexy--his experience with sexy stripping was limited to his imagination and one extremely embarrassing hookup he preferred not to think about--but he managed to kick away his jeans as Lan Zhan dropped his underwear on the floor and then it was done. They were naked. On a bed. Together.

Wei Ying swallowed hard. Lan Zhan was right there. In the flesh. The very naked flesh. Available for him to touch. Expecting him to touch. It was a lot. In every sense Wei Ying could think of, it was a lot.

"Wei Ying?" Lan Zhan said, a tiny frown forming between his brows.

That wasn't right. Lan Zhan frowning at him when they were naked on a bed seemed like a very bad thing.

Wei Ying smiled at him brightly. "Hi!"

"What's wrong?"

"Why would something be wrong?"

"You look..." Lan Zhan paused, as though he was weighing his words. "You look uncertain. Worried. Is this not what you want?"

Wei Ying reached out, grabbing Lan Zhan's hand and pulling it close to his chest. The warmth against his skin was good. Grounding. Something tight in his throat unlocked.

"I want this. I'm just--" he gestured to his head "--having a brain moment. Not about you. About...this. It's not how I ever thought we'd be when we were kids and it's overwhelming but in a good way, you know?"

The concern melted away, replaced with a gentle smile. "Mn. I know."

"You know what I think would help?" Wei Ying said, waiting for the tiny eyebrow twitch that signalled Lan Zhan was waiting. "If you kissed me. Much harder for me to overthink and freak out when you're kissing me brainless. Okay?"

Lan Zhan didn't seem to need any further encouragement; he was leaning into the kiss before Wei Ying finished speaking. There was no way to mistake his intentions. The kiss was heady and wonderful, overwhelming in exactly the right way, and Wei Ying surrendered to it without hesitation. He let himself be pushed down to the bed, gasping as Lan Zhan settled over him and they were finally skin to skin from chest to knee. It felt incredible, the contrast between the cool sheets and Lan Zhan's warm skin. Wei Ying wrapped his arms around Lan Zhan's chest and pulled him closer until Lan Zhan's weight pinned him down.

Perfect.

Lan Zhan was perfect in every way, better than Wei Ying had ever imagined. His weight pressed Wei Ying down into the bed, squeezing all the jitters away to leave only sensation. It was exactly what he needed and somehow not quite enough. He kissed Lan Zhan and arched against him, gasping as the movement made his cock slide against Lan Zhan's hard length. He did it again and then shifted slightly so his legs could fall open and Lan Zhan could settle properly against him.

He mumbled swear words against Lan Zhan's mouth, unable to stop himself and also unwilling to lose contact so he could express himself properly. It just felt too good and he'd never been able to reign in his mouth. Mumbling would have to do.

Mumbling turned into disappointed sounds when Lan Zhan pulled out of the kiss, but apparently that was just so Lan Zhan could trail kisses down his jaw and neck.

"Fuck," Wei Ying said on a gasp, and then, "Fuck, yes, fuck."

Lan Zhan's teeth felt amazing against his neck. The spark of pain when he bit down went straight to Wei Ying's cock and the gentle way he licked and kissed it better made everything feel warm and shivery. Wei Ying petted Lan Zhan's hair, his shoulders, wherever he could reach. He wanted to explore all the wonderful skin he was touching, but the things Lan Zhan was doing with his mouth were making him melt into the bed and he couldn't. His body's wants were overwhelming his brain.

Lan Zhan shifted down further, kissing across Wei Ying's collarbones before following a path to his nipple. Wei Ying hadn't been particularly sensitive there before but it seemed like Lan Zhan made the difference: he swore as Lan Zhan licked it and curled into him with a punched out sound when Lan Zhan sucked lightly. The sounds he made when Lan Zhan grazed it with his teeth were embarrassingly loud and high.

A warm puff of air against his skin was almost as devastating. Wei Ying wanted to sit up and express his outrage over Lan Zhan laughing--even silently--at his reactions but it was a bit funny so he really couldn't. The thought was driven away a moment later because Lan Zhan shifted to pay attention to his other nipple and Wei Ying couldn't hold in more embarrassingly loud sounds.

It was probably a good thing they hadn't had access to bare skin on the steps outside: Wei Ying didn't want the entire Cloud Recesses to hear them.

It was like Lan Zhan was determined to drive him out of his mind. By the time he started shifting down again, Wei Ying was almost incoherent and he couldn't have kept his hips still if he'd tried. Lan Zhan kissed his way over Wei Ying's ribs, across his belly, and down his happy trail. He nuzzled into the crease of Wei Ying's thigh, pressed teasingly fleeting kisses into the sensitive skin, and Wei Ying couldn't stop himself bucking up for more contact.

Lan Zhan held his hips down and Wei Ying's breath stuttered in his throat because that...that was not something he'd ever been into before. A strong forearm across his belly and weight on his legs, pinning him in place so he could barely wriggle? Should have made him panic, but all it did was ramp everything up. Someone was making high-pitched "ah ah" sounds in between begging and it took him a moment to realise it was him.

It took a real effort to push up on his elbows. He wanted to see Lan Zhan, though, and it was worth it. Lan Zhan had a look of such intense concentration on his face that Wei Ying's breath caught in his throat again. He felt a little like he was burning up just from the way Lan Zhan was looking at him. How was anyone supposed to survive having so much awe and desire focusing on them? Was that even allowed?

Lan Zhan's eyes flicked up to meet his, and Wei Ying swallowed hard. Their gazes stayed locked as Lan Zhan slowly leaned down and licked a stripe up the underside of his cock. Wei Ying covered his mouth to hold back the noise he made.

"Let me hear you," Lan Zhan said quietly.

Wei Ying nodded shakily and dropped his hand back to the bed. There was just a hint of smugness at the corners of Lan Zhan's mouth. Wei Ying didn't have a chance to remark on that because Lan Zhan wrapped his lips around the tip of his cock and that was it, Wei Ying's higher brain functions were gone. Lan Zhan closed his eyes for a moment as if savouring the taste before opening them and looking up at Wei Ying through his eyelashes again.

"Ngggh," Wei Ying said intelligently.

Lan Zhan's tongue did something that had to be illegal and Wei Ying's elbows gave out. He flopped back on the bed, swearing loudly, and Lan Zhan made a pleased sound that vibrated through Wei Ying's cock and sent sparks everywhere. Wei Ying could only lie there, gripping the sheets and thrashing his head as Lan Zhan gave him the best blow job he'd ever experienced. It was overwhelming. Incredible. Lan Zhan seemed determined to suck his soul out through his cock and Wei Ying was powerless to resist.

It felt like no time and forever when the familiar tightening in his balls warned him that he was teetering on the edge and about to fall. He tried to warn Lan Zhan, but that didn't stop him. White hot pleasure rolled over Wei Ying in a wave that kept going and Lan Zhan rode it out with him, swallowing around his cock and taking everything Wei Ying gave him. He felt like a limp noodle by the time he finished and everything went a little fuzzy for a while.

When he was able to pay attention again, Lan Zhan was stretched out at his side, his breath tickling Wei Ying's collarbone as he pumped his cock frantically. Wei Ying planted a sloppy kiss on his forehead and focused on regaining enough coordination to help.

"Yeah, that's right," Wei Ying said, his voice sounding raspy in his own ears. He wrapped his hand around Lan Zhan's fist, all his orgasm-drunk limbs could manage. "Yeah, come on me, that's what you need. Do it. Mark me up. I want it."

That seemed to be the final straw. Lan Zhan shuddered and made soft, panting sounds against Wei Ying's shoulder as he came and came. Wei Ying petted Lan Zhan's wrist and forearm, feeling inordinately pleased even though being covered in Lan Zhan's come would probably feel gross in about two minutes.

Lan Zhan went limp against him and Wei Ying continued petting him until he felt Lan Zhan stir again. Then Wei Ying very deliberately scooped up some of the come and licked his finger, closing his lips around it to suck it clean. Lan Zhan lifted his head to stare avidly as Wei Ying did it again. And again.

"Wei Ying," he said hoarsely.

"Uh huh, that's me." Wei Ying waggled his eyebrows. "Hungry?"

Lan Zhan stared at him silently for a moment before pinning him to the bed again with a hard kiss.

***

They ate supper after round two. The food was still mostly warm, in a testament to the efficiency of the insulated baskets rather than their speed. Round three was much later, Wei Ying indulging himself in the slow exploration he'd been aching for earlier. They fell into exhausted sleep after and for the first time in a long time, Wei Ying didn't dream of anything he could recall later. He woke early in the morning to Lan Zhan kissing him awake and the ensuing sleepy, relaxed sex was the best yet. Lan Zhan's cock between his thighs felt amazing and Wei Ying was surprised to find himself coming moments after Lan Zhan from only a few slow pulls on his own cock. It would probably be even better with Lan Zhan inside him, but the intimacy of Lan Zhan fucking his thighs was enough to be deeply satisfying.

They visited A-Yuan in the daycare on the way to their classrooms. Wei Ying's face felt too warm at the wide grin Wen Ning gave him. A-Yuan didn't seem to notice that anything was different and he peppered Lan Zhan with questions about his "adventure" as though he hadn't spent all that time worrying the monsters would eat him. Lan Zhan answered the questions with grave seriousness, focusing on the help they'd given the communities they visited rather than the zombies they'd found. A-Yuan thought sleeping in the buses sounded incredibly exciting and Wei Ying kept his face straight because Lan Zhan had expressed some opinions about that and the effect on his back in a delightfully petty way.

A-Yuan also seemed thoroughly charmed by the news that one of the communities was sending them a couple of pigs in addition to sacks of rice, in payment for their aid. Wei Ying decided that explaining the pigs would become pork ribs later was a job for his future self.

Even the weather seemed in a better mood. The skies cleared and although it was cold, the sun shone down. The mud was starting to dry out by the time Wei Ying finished teaching and went down to his lab in the medical centre. A group of grannies were busy replenishing the test kits so for the first time since he'd taken on the role, he had the time to look at other projects. He was deep into the schematics for the Cloud Recesses energy grid, looking for ways to apply some of his learnings on power management for the bike to their battery storage, when a message arrived from Lan Huan. Wei Ying sighed regretfully, but Lan Huan was one person he couldn't ignore. At least he didn't get drenched walking to his office.

Lan Huan smiled at him when greetings were over. "I understand your test prototype is ready for wider use."

Wei Ying nodded. "Passed all its evaluations with flying colours. And it's easy enough to recycle that grannies and kids can do it."

"Excellent news." Lan Huan's smile didn't quite reach his eyes. "We'd like you to conduct a field test before we release the design specifications and start supplying communities who don't have the resources to manufacture their own."

"Ah?" Wei Ying tilted his head.

"Yesterday was an excellent demonstration in controlled circumstances, but the elders feel--and I agree--that it would be wise to ensure the tests can be used successfully in the real life situations where they will be most useful."

Wei Ying nodded. "The result time is below ten seconds now. That's good enough for testing under fire."

"I'm glad you agree." Lan Huan steepled his fingers. "We've had an aid request from a red area. Two communities, all elderly, injured, and children. No fighters. Their defences need shoring up but they don't have the manpower to do the work or keep the workers safe while they do it."

"Where are their--" Wei Ying cut himself off. "They've had shitty luck, right? All their fighters are part of the red zone problem now?"

Lan Huan nodded. "Yes. They lost the last two a month ago when they were trying to get food supplies in. The communities will starve over the winter without aid, but they're in a red zone and it's likely their defences will fail before starvation becomes an issue. They've requested help from anyone who has the capacity."

"Us?"

"And a couple of other groups, but we'll provide the bulk of the fighting power. We'll try to clear out some of the nests that are causing issues and protect the workers rebuilding the defences. If we can make that area safer, the communities will be able to trade for supplies to get through winter."

"I can have fifty kits ready tomorrow," Wei Ying said. "More if you can wait a day or two."

"Fifty will have to do," Lan Huan said. "That gives your team at least two tests each. If they do their jobs well, they should be the only people who need to worry about testing."

"My team?"

Lan Huan inclined his head. "I'd like you to supervise and evaluate. You'll stay on the bus, you won't make contact with any zombies, and you won't use your gift. Observe and evaluate only."

"Observe?" Wei Ying protested. "I'm more useful out there fighting if I'm going. I can hold my own, you know I can. Everyone has seen what I can do."

Lan Huan's twisted slightly at the corners. "They have indeed, and that makes some people...nervous."

"Nervous?"

"Your gift is useful but it can be a little...unsettling. It also puts strain on you and there won't be time to tend to you if you overextend yourself in the middle of a fight."

Wei Ying raised his eyebrow. "My gift is unsettling and nobody wants me to hurt myself? Really?"

Lan Huan shrugged. "The second might be a concern expressed by a small group rather than the elders."

"Wen Qing."

"On behalf of A-Yuan. And my brother."

"He knows about this?"

"I raised the possibility with him earlier. He suggested I talk to you." Lan Huan leaned forward on his desk. "Your gift can make a real difference in a fight, but I won't have you needlessly endangered. If it becomes absolutely necessary, I won't ask anyone to chain you to the bus, but I'd like you to consider carefully before charging in. If you become the only way to successfully extract the team, then do what you need to. Frankly, your gift is far less valuable to me than your engineering skills and the other things you bring to this community. Please keep that in mind."

"I can't promise not to help if I'm needed."

"I won't ask you to."

Wei Ying nodded. "Okay. Then I'll plan to observe and evaluate, but I'm taking my sword."

"I wouldn't send anyone out without the ability to defend themselves."

"Glad we agree on that."

"I'd also like you to consider how many people here care for you if you need to make that choice."

"I'll try."

"Good." Lan Huan nodded. "The buses leave at four tomorrow. We're not planning for this to be an overnight job."

"Four in the morning?"

"Is that a problem?"

Wei Ying shook his head. "Just warning you that I can't guarantee I'll be awake when I get on the bus."

"I only need you to be awake when you get out of the bus at the other end."

***

He didn't wake up until the bus was nearly at their destination. As he stretched and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, his gaze caught on a caged area in the corner of the bus. It had a single seat inside with straps and chains attached. The mesh surrounding the seat looked strong and the seat appeared to have reinforced bolts holding it to the deck. He'd slept through most of the journey to Cloud Recesses weeks ago, but he was sure there hadn't been a cage in the bus that time.

Wei Ying nudged his seat mate. "What's that for?"

She glanced at the cage with a grim expression. "In case one of your tests comes up positive."

"We're taking them back with us?"

"If that's what they want."

Wei Ying grimaced. "What happens if they turn during transport?"

"That's why they'll be chained up." She tilted her head consideringly. "Could you hold them quiet if we needed you to?"

"For a while. Not for the entire journey, though."

"Hmm."

They arrived at their first location a few minutes later. It was light, but still early enough for frost on the ground and Wei Ying wasn't sure they would have much luck: zombies tended to go dormant in cold weather.

He revised that theory a couple of minutes later as zombies erupted out of a copse of trees the moment people started jumping out of the bus. Wei Ying gritted his teeth and stayed where he was, just inside the rear door with a crate of tests ready to hand out. The mission had been delayed by a day despite Lan Huan's plans, so he'd seconded a couple of students to his team and they had added thirty extra to the fifty he'd originally promised: enough for everyone to test at least three times over the day if necessary. Given how quickly they'd found the first zombie group, he was starting to suspect they might need more if they planned to test on every bus re-entry.

It was grim work outside, easier than Wei Ying had initially feared from the numbers but not easy. He kept his sword next to him, ready to draw if he was needed, but even when his seat mate was fighting two zombies at once, the team had it handled. They were well trained. The last zombie went down and Lan Huan's "necessity" never looked likely.

The team piled up the bodies and set a fire, just to be sure. Standard operating procedure according to the documents Wei Ying had been given. The mid-morning sunshine was strong as they trooped onto the bus. Everyone tested negative and they drove on.

They joined the team working on defence repairs for lunch without sighting any zombies. Wei Ying listened to the community leader discuss the problems they'd been having with their wind turbines and took a look, then spent an hour with the people who had been maintaining them to explain the improvements that could be made and the work they needed to do on the bad wiring in one.

It was early afternoon when the bus set out again, towards a section of road that was the main route in and out for both communities and had been attacked by zombies many times over the last two months. They found the source easily enough: zombies swarmed towards them before the bus came to a halt. The bus rocked under the assault and the driver gunned the engine, doing some heart-stopping swerves and spins to dislodge zombies that had tried to climb the sides, before slamming the brakes on.

The team were out of the bus in a flash, slamming the doors behind them and yelling for Wei Ying to engage the bolts. He hit the levers to lock himself inside even though it felt wrong to sit idly while they fought. As soon as he opened his gift to feel what was happening out there, the weight of dead flesh was almost overwhelming. He hadn't felt a zombie horde that large for months, and there seemed to be distressingly few white uniforms out there compared to the number of ragged bodies. Wei Ying watched the fight with his heart in his mouth, Lan Huan's warnings echoing in his head as he fought the instinct to hurl himself into the fray.

It was difficult to keep track of everything from the window as the fighting swirled around. Time passed slowly and much too fast all at once. Wei Ying couldn't see any white-clad bodies on the ground yet, but he didn't have a full field of vision. One group caught his eye as they moved closer to the bus: his seatmate and one of the older men fighting five zombies. None of the zombies looked fresh, which meant they were slower, but they didn't have to be fast to be overwhelming if there were enough of them and they didn't stop coming. As Wei Ying watched, another zombie moved to join the fray from behind his seatmate and he could tell that she couldn't see it, couldn't hear its moans under the furore around them. She was blind to it moving closer, arms outstretched to pull her in and bite her. Wei Ying knew he couldn't get there in time and wouldn't be heard if he tried to shout.

He gritted his teeth, opened himself further, and reached.

Dead flesh tried to resist him, tried to obey the bite-consume-run instinct that underlay every contact he had with zombies, but it was old. Closer to death than life, even with its instincts driving it. He could hold it in place, frozen mid-grab, just long enough for his seatmate to cut down the zombie in front of her and catch sight of it out of the corner of her eye. She whirled and decapitated it. Wei Ying could see the flash of confusion in her eyes when the zombie didn't react to her movement. A flicker of her eyes as she glanced towards the bus and understood.

Zombie-dead became really dead as its head landed on the ground. Wei Ying released it immediately and the corpse crumpled as though its strings had been cut.

His seatmate nodded an acknowledgement and plunged back into the fight.

Wei Ying released a breath he hadn't realised he was holding. There was something he could do to help after all and he didn't need to break his promise to Lan Huan or put himself in more danger than his commitment to A-Yuan could stand. He scanned the fighting and spotted another danger spot, another zombie closing on an unaware fighter, so he reached and held it. Only for a few seconds, just long enough for it to be spotted and killed, but it was enough. Another life saved. Wei Ying nodded to himself and set to work, moving from one side of the bus to the other and cursing his restricted field of view even as he repeated the cycle over and over.

After a couple of minutes, the Cloud Recesses fighters must have realised what he was doing because the surprise disappeared when they saw the frozen zombies. No one became sloppy or assumed he'd be there to save them, but they moved slightly differently and Wei Ying realised they were trying to keep their fights within view of the bus windows. He gritted his teeth and continued. He never held a zombie in place for more than a couple of seconds: it was usually enough to save a life or give someone time to kill the zombie.

In the past, when he'd been out there fighting, he'd always tried to control multiple zombies and fight at the same time. It worked after a fashion, he'd survived for this long, but he'd tired fast and a long fight like this would have been worse than difficult. A long fight like this would have had him on the floor with a blinding headache, possibly coughing up blood, before the end. Exactly the scenario Lan Huan had warned him against creating. This somehow felt like he was making more of a difference, but for much less effort. Maybe there were advantages to working with a group who knew what he could do and weren't horrified.

By the time the last zombie fell, a slight headache was starting to throb behind his eyes. Wei Ying reached, but he couldn't feel any zombies. Only dead bodies resting peacefully.

He unlocked the bus and jumped down, bracing himself for a moment against a brief wave of dizziness. Maybe he wasn't entirely unaffected by his gift usage. It was still better than his usual state. He grabbed a box of tests and made his way to the largest group of Cloud Recesses fighters. Everyone was dirty and he could see a few smears of blood against the white uniform. His seatmate had blood dripping down the side of her face from a gash near her hairline. He scanned the ground but he couldn't see any sign of Cloud Recesses white on any of the bodies.

The team leader, Lan Xu, offered him a tired smile. "I thought we were waiting until everyone is ready to get on the bus."

Wei Ying shrugged. "You've still got bodies to burn and I don't think anyone wants a surprise while you're doing that, hmm?"

"Fair point," Lan Xu said. "Thanks for the help."

Wei Ying nodded, unable to think of a response. He handed out tests, unable to relax until everyone had a solid negative. There were a lot of relieved looks and he could understand: it was hard to tell how many of the scratches and gashes staining the uniforms were benign and how many had come from tooth-grazes, if not actual bites. Infections had been caused by small abrasions from the wrong zombie tooth.

The sun was setting by the time they climbed on the bus, leaving behind a huge pyre of bodies well ablaze. Wei Ying was so exhausted everything ached and he dropped into his seat with a weary sigh. Lan Xu was talking on a radio too quietly to overhear and Wei Ying allowed himself a moment to lean back in his seat with his eyes closed. Not asleep, just resting and allowing his headache to subside a little.

He startled awake when Lan Xu clapped his hands for attention.

"Good news," he said with a small smile, "we're going home. It's late, it's dark, and the teams working on the community defences have done their work. We can all agree that we've cleared out this valley, which was the main hotspot here, so our work here is done today."

There was a quiet cheer around the bus and the atmosphere changed slightly, from exhausted resignation to exhausted cheerfulness. They'd done their work with no casualties, minimal injuries, and everyone inside the bus was definitely zombie-free.

Wei Ying joined in the cheerful chatter for a few minutes before resting his head back and allowing his eyes to slip closed again.

***

He was nudged awake as the bus rounded the final curve up the mountain. The moon was bright and huge outside, the sky was clear, and everyone on the bus was in an even better mood than they'd been a couple of hours ago. Wei Ying couldn't help getting caught up in it: testing had proved deployable and successful, and he'd learned a way to use his gift that was more efficient than anything he'd tried before. It had been a good day. And now he was nearly home, where he could check on A-Yuan and then crawl into bed to wrap himself around Lan Zhan. Maybe Lan Zhan would even wake up for some sleepy making out before they fell asleep. That would be the best end to the day.

The gates slid open as the bus approached and they passed through. Wei Ying stretched as the bus parked, smiling ruefully as several joints made audible clicks. His seatmate shot him an amused glance before standing to grab her kit. Wei Ying grabbed his sword and stood up to strap it on. He had a couple of boxes of gear to lug out--used and unused tests plus a small toolkit--and his seatmate stayed behind to help him. As a result, they were the last to jump down from the bus.

There was a small group standing near the gate into the main complex, and Wei Ying frowned slightly when he recognised Wen Qing with a group of heavily-armed men. They'd radio'd ahead to let everyone know their group was clean. There was no need for a reception committee like that. He exchanged a glance with his seatmate and they sped up, practically jogging across the parking area.

Wei Ying opened his mouth to ask what was going on, but Wen Qing tensed up at the same time as he heard the grind of the outer gates sliding open again. He turned around to watch another Cloud Recesses bus drive in and come to a halt in the middle of the parking area. Wei Ying's mind was whirling but an instinct kept him silent and still, even though he could feel the approach of something terrible. Something was wrong.

The bus doors opened. People jumped down and moved away quickly, glancing over their shoulders nervously as they moved. Wei Ying swallowed.

There was a pause. Wen Qing put a hand on his forearm, the contact so unexpected he flinched. His heart was racing in his chest, hammering in his ears.

A figure climbed down from the bus. There were chains rattling on its wrists and ankles, attached to more chains stretching back like a leash. A heavy muzzle covered the figure's lower face.

For a moment, Wei Ying couldn't process what he was seeing, didn't recognise the shape of the man he was watching, even though he knew that body intimately. Then their eyes met and it all crashed down on him.

"Lan Zhan," he whispered. "Shit, no, Lan Zhan."

Chapter Text

Wei Ying was frozen in place. He didn't need Wen Qing's hand on his forearm, gripping so tightly it hurt, to hold him where he was. He couldn't move. Everything had narrowed down to the sight of Lan Zhan, chained and muzzled. He was taking slow steps away from the bus, moving without his usual elegance, and it took Wei Ying a long, awful moment to realise that he wasn't lurching forward and being held back. He was moving slowly because his ankles were hobbled and he was allowing the people holding the leash-chains to keep up. He wasn't straining against his chains.

There was intelligence in his eyes. Intelligence and such intense sadness that Wei Ying's chest felt tight and his eyes burned.

Lan Zhan was still in there. He was alive. Wei Ying reached but there was no dead flesh, no bite-run-tear instinct. The only dead things he could feel were a few small mammal corpses just outside the fencing. He started to turn towards Wen Qing and his eyes caught on the collar of Lan Zhan's coat: it was stained dark red. As Lan Zhan moved closer, the bite mark on his neck became clearer, still oozing sluggishly. It looked torn and raw, but the shape was unmistakable.

"What happened?" Wei Ying asked. "He wasn't...he was meant to be putting A-Yuan to bed. Why isn't he at home?"

Wen Qing paused before she answered. "A-Yuan is fine, he's with A-Ning."

"That's not what I--why is Lan Zhan out there, not A-Ning?"

He felt the moment the words landed and Wen Qing's fingers dug in harder for a moment before releasing him. The words were probably needlessly cruel, but...Wen Ning was immune. He'd been bitten a dozen times and he'd never turned.

"There was an emergency in Caiyi," Wen Qing said, her voice low and flat. "A-Ning volunteered, but someone needed to look after A-Yuan. He's no team leader. Lan Zhan is and there was no one else to send."

"What do you mean, no one else? There are a lot of people here! It didn't need to be him."

"He volunteered. He knew what he was doing."

"Has he been tested yet?" Wei Ying asked.

"We'll give him a kit as soon as it's safe to unchain him," Wen Qing said.

"So it might not be a zombie bite?"

He could feel the withering glare she sent him and his face heated. Fair point. What else would leave bite marks like that on someone who had been fighting a zombie incursion? Thankfully, she didn't feel the need to comment.

Lan Zhan was only a few feet away now. Three people were holding the chains taught, making sure he didn't have enough leeway to lurch unexpectedly for anyone. It was the worst thing Wei Ying had ever seen in his life. He knew it would be seared into his memory, to join his nightmares from the fire in Lotus Pier and every other awful thing that had happened in his shitty, unlucky life.

For a moment their gazes locked again. Wei Ying had to fight the urge to reach for him and he could see Lan Zhan's hand twitch, making his chain rattle, as if he felt the same. There was such infinite regret in Lan Zhan's eyes that Wei Ying couldn't bear it, but he couldn't look away either.

Then Lan Zhan was past him, the security detail was surrounding him, and Wei Ying could only watch as they marched him away. Someone had taken the crate out of his hands a while ago, he didn't know when, so he wrapped his arms around himself against the cold seeping into his bones. Lan Zhan. He wasn't gone yet, but he would be. Soon. Wei Ying had never seen a late conversion as it happened and he didn't know what it would be like. Would it be a slow, creeping death, or would he blink and everything that had made him Lan Zhan would be gone?

"Come on," Wen Qing said. "Bring one of your kits."

"I don't think he needs one," Wei Ying said dully.

"Just bring it and don't ask questions."

Wei Ying didn't argue any further. He grabbed a couple of fresh kits out of the box and followed. Everything around him felt unreal. His head felt stuffed with cotton, too numb to feel anything although there was a lurking knot of awfulness waiting to pounce if he allowed it.

The sad little procession wound around the edge of the Cloud Recesses in silence. They passed through a gate and then another. Icy wind was cutting through Wei Ying's clothes and somehow the cold helped. It froze his feelings. The white gravel pathways almost glowed in the moonlight; they barely needed the lamps to see where they were going. Wei Ying couldn't take his eyes off Lan Zhan, walking at the front of the group surrounded by guards holding leashes. Guards with guns who would shoot Lan Zhan in the head if he moved wrong without even checking whether he'd really converted.

It was inevitable. Whether it happened now or in a few hours, Lan Zhan was going be a zombie. Everything warm and gentle about him would disappear. Something else would wear his skin, look out from his eyes, and Wei Ying would lose him. He might be able to freeze Lan Zhan's corpse in place long enough for someone to kill him before he hurt anyone. Maybe. The thought turned his stomach, but Wei Ying knew he'd do it. He'd control Lan Zhan's zombie corpse for as long as he could, until he'd used up every bit of power he had if he had to. He just wasn't sure he could be the one to put a bullet in his head.

A small building appeared as they rounded a corner. It looked newer than most of the buildings in Cloud Recesses. A tall fence surrounded it and there were no trees near it. There were no windows.

The guards unlocked the fence gate and led the way inside. The door looked heavy when they opened it and Wei Ying noted that it required a key, a code, and a handprint. Not great if anyone required fast access, but the layers of security on a place built to contain zombies--or people who would become zombies--seemed appropriate. There were solar panels on the roof, probably a battery inside: even a power cut in the main complex shouldn't disable the security.

Inside there was a short, brightly-lit corridor with two doors on each side. Four cells in total. It didn't seem like many, but then again, four zombies inside the Cloud Recesses perimeter was probably more than enough. All the doors were ajar: Lan Zhan would be the only resident.

They led him to one of the far doors. The tension increased until it was almost suffocating as the guards prodded Lan Zhan into the cell. Wei Ying started forward but Wen Qing shook her head and he stayed back.

After a couple of minutes, the guards came out of the room and Wen Qing moved towards the cell, Wei Ying on her heels. One of the guards took up position opposite the cell door, the rest retreated to the exit. The door led into a small, bare area that was as brightly lit as the corridor. A heavy set of bars divided the area from the rest of the cell and Wei Ying's stomach twisted at the sight of Lan Zhan behind them. His chains and leash had been removed, but he was still wearing the muzzle.

Wen Qing held out a hand. "Test kit."

Wei Ying handed it to her silently. She carefully fed the kit through the bars. They were just wide enough to get a hand through but she didn't do that. Lan Zhan waited several feet back from the bars until she'd moved closer to the door.

Lan Zhan took the kit and retreated to the back wall. He worked it smoothly, easily, familiar with it from the times he'd been Wei Ying's test subject for each iteration of the device. Wei Ying wasn't aware that he was holding his breath until Lan Zhan held up the device and he saw the colour of the fluid in the little window.

It was...green?

A muddy, cloudy green. Not pure bright yellow, not deep blue. Wei Ying hadn't even realised that was an option. When he glanced at Wen Qing, her expression told him she hadn't realised it could do that either.

"What is that?" Wei Ying said.

Lan Zhan carefully fed the test through the bars and stepped back so that Wen Qing could take it. She examined the test result carefully, tilting the device back and forth to see the way the fluid moved.

"Give him another," she said.

Wei Ying nodded. He knelt and pushed the second test he'd brought through the bars. Again, Lan Zhan waited until he'd retreated before approaching the bars. A minute later, they were all looking at a second muddy green result.

"What does that mean?" Wei Ying said. "Are the tests broken? Do we need to retest everyone who came out with me?"

Wen Qing shook her head. "I don't think they're broken."

"Then what is it?"

Wen Qing beckoned Lan Zhan and he stepped closer to the bars, tilting his head so Wen Qing could examine the bite on his neck. She rummaged in the bag she was carrying and pulled out a swab stick and tube.

"Try not to convert in the next thirty seconds," she said dryly.

If Lan Zhan reacted, the muzzle muffled the sound, but Wei Ying could imagine the dryly amused sound he probably made. She reached in and swiped the swab over the bite mark, careful not to contaminate it on the bars as she pulled her hand back.

"I'll test it, just in case, but I think we can feel sure it's a zombie bite," she said.

"Has anyone ever been bitten and not gone zombie?" Wei Ying said. "Apart from Wen Ning, obviously. He doesn't count here."

Wen Qing glanced at Lan Zhan again and he inclined his head slightly, as if he was giving her permission. It made no sense.

"What's going on?" Wei Ying said slowly.

Wen Qing folded her arms and lifted her chin. "I'm--we're developing a vaccine. Lan Zhan is part of the first human trials. He was injected two weeks ago."

It took a moment for Wei Ying to process the words. A vaccine. They were working on a vaccine. Lan Zhan had been...and he hadn't said anything.

"Who's we?" Wei Ying said.

There were a dozen questions whirling around his head but that was the first one he could find words for.

"Me. A couple of other labs." Wen Qing's gaze hardened. "We haven't been telling anyone. One of the labs working on it was attacked a few months ago, burned to the ground and everyone died. It wasn't the first time."

"But a vaccine is a good thing, right?"

"It should be, but a lot of people don't trust it." Wen Qing frowned. "A few months after this all started, a group working on one went to human trials too fast. They dosed six people."

Wei Ying glanced at Lan Zhan before refocusing on Wen Qing. "What happened?"

"They all converted within six hours of receiving the dose," Wen Qing said. "The entire compound was dead or zombie in a day. The groups who have attacked other labs did it because they knew about that shit show and they've vowed to stop any more vaccine damage by stopping all vaccine research."

Cold horror ran through Wei Ying. "Fuck. And you gave it to Lan Zhan?"

"Not using that approach," Wen Qing said sharply. "Their methodology was flawed from the start. They released their research before everything went to hell so nobody else would follow the same path, and their mistakes are obvious, including releasing the test subjects into the community within minutes of dosing them."

"But you still gave him an untested vaccine!"

Wen Qing snorted. "We gave him and a couple of other volunteers a vaccine we had tested on everything except humans. We were confident it wouldn't have the same effect. He's still human, right?"

Wei Ying gestured to the strange tests. "Are you sure?"

"He's been testing daily since we gave him the dose. They all have. This is the first time the results haven't been clear."

"Have any of the others been bitten yet?"

"No." Wen Qing frowned. "The theory is sound, but we didn't have a way to simulate a zombie bite in a living system without having an actual zombie bite something, and that's been an issue."

"I know you've had zombies in here."

"Uh huh, but putting living creatures in a cell with a zombie to get bitten doesn't go well."

"Ah?"

"We haven't been able to get anything out before it gets torn apart, so we can't study what happens in a living system after they're bitten. They tend to be dead."

"Oh." Wei Ying glanced at Lan Zhan. "So you don't know if it even works?"

Wen Qing shrugged. "We confirmed it doesn't have negative side-effects, which was the principal goal of this trial. We planned to expand the test group in a couple of weeks, to cover more of the people who are active outside the compound, but we can't ask people to let themselves get bitten for science."

Wei Ying grimaced. "I guess not."

"If they get bitten in the course of their normal duties, then we can study them." Wen Qing rolled her eyes. "We anticipated that it might take months to get enough data to confirm whether it has any effect. I didn't anticipate Lan Zhan deciding to take a leaf out of your book. You're as bad as each other."

"What?" Wei Ying glanced at Lan Zhan in time to see his gaze drop to the floor. "What did you do?"

"I'll let him explain." Wen Qing rolled her eyes. "I have tests to run."

She thrust a slip of paper into his hand and started to open the cell door. As Wei Ying felt the paper, a new though struck him, sending shivers down his spine.

"The attack on your compound in Yiling," he said, watching as her shoulders went tense. That reaction told him all he needed to know, but he asked the question anyway. "Was it random or was it because you were working on a vaccine?"

Wen Qing's expression was grim as she looked back at him. "What do you think?"

Wei Ying nodded and she left.

***

Wei Ying stood in silence for a long time, lost in his thoughts. He'd always assumed the attack in Yiling had happened at least partially because of him. It hadn't been the first time: word got out about zombies behaving oddly around him and people either wanted to kill him or use him. Maybe they'd also been after Wen Ning, but he'd accepted a good portion of the guilt. It had eaten at him for months, kept him from staying anywhere for long even though it might have been better for A-Yuan.

It hadn't been him. People had died; an entire commune that was working was destroyed because a few people were so paranoid and terrified that they'd declared war on scientists. They'd destroyed--were still trying to wreck--something that might stop the horror and allow the world to start recovering.

He wanted to be furious, but all he could feel was exhausted sadness.

A small sound pulled him out of his thoughts: the shuffling of feet. He looked up and met Lan Zhan's gaze through the bars. The expression in Lan Zhan's eyes sent shards of pain lancing through his heart: so much sadness and guilt it was too much.

"Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying said softly.

Lan Zhan spoke, but his words were muffled and garbled by the muzzle. A frustrated crease appeared between Lan Zhan's brows.

Wei Ying looked down at the slip of paper in his hand. Four numbers. A lock combination?

He gestured. "I'll take that off for you."

Lan Zhan's frown deepened and Wei Ying found himself snorting a small bark of laughter.

"Is there really any danger of you biting me through those bars?" Wei Ying said. "I'm not an idiot. I won't put my hands in there for you to chomp on."

Lan Zhan still didn't look convinced.

"Hey, it's me here," Wei Ying said. "I'll know if you've converted before anyone else. Come on, let me take that thing off you. We should talk before...uh, just in case. You know?"

Lan Zhan hesitated for a moment longer but something in Wei Ying's argument must have convinced him. He moved to the bars and turned so Wei Ying could see the combination lock at he back of his head. It was entirely mechanical, no scanner in sight, which made sense and was also tricky to work when Wei Ying's fingers were shaking. He took a deep breath and manipulated the stiff barrels until the numbers lined up correctly.

"There you go," Wei Ying said, stepping away from the bars again.

Lan Zhan reached up and pulled the muzzle off. He dropped it on the floor and pushed it through the bars with his toe before retreating to the far side of the cell. There were red lines on his cheeks where the edges of it had dug into his flesh. He worked his jaw carefully for a moment, stretching it as though he'd been clenching it for hours. Maybe he had.

"Wei Ying."

Hearing his name in Lan Zhan's voice, even though it was low and hoarse, made Wei Ying's eyes feel hot and prickly. He swiped a hand over them and refused to admit that his fingers came away wet.

"Hi Lan Zhan," he said. "What the fuck did you do?"

The corner of Lan Zhan's mouth tipped up in a tiny, wry smile. "Nothing you wouldn't have done."

"Difference is, you're not me. How the fuck did you get yourself bitten? Please don't tell me this was some stupid plan to get test data for Wen Qing early."

"Is that something you'd do?"

Wei Ying rolled his eyes. "I'm a lot of things, but even I wouldn't do something that shitty and ridiculous."

"Mn."

Wei Ying narrowed his eyes. "Who was it?"

Lan Zhan made an enquiring sound.

"The person you put yourself in front of a zombie for," Wei Ying said. "That's what Wen Qing meant, right? That's the kind of thing I'd be doing if I got bitten. Who was it?"

"I don't know her name," Lan Zhan said.

"Pretty?" Wei Ying asked, forcing himself to smirk even though the entire conversation felt like knives in his chest. "I bet she was pretty."

"She was five."

"Oh." That was...exactly what Wei Ying would have done. It was how he'd ended up escaping a compound with a small boy in his arms. "Is she all right?"

"She is well."

Wei Ying smiled at him. "I guess that makes it okay then."

It didn't, not really, because nothing would make it okay if Lan Zhan didn't survive this. Even knowing there was a child out there who was alive and unharmed because of what Lan Zhan had done didn't make it okay, although Wei Ying reluctantly had to concede it wasn't worth nothing. The selfish part of him wanted to protest that trading Lan Zhan's life for someone else's was unfair, was awful, and he'd rather have Lan Zhan than a thousand little girls. It wasn't a part of him he was proud of, but it was a human part of him.

"I totally get why Wen Qing is mad with you right now," Wei Ying said, trying to keep his tone light. "That was definitely something I'd do, not the kind of move the illustrious Lan Zhan of Cloud Recesses Sanctuary would pull."

"It was necessary."

Wei Ying snorted. "Yeah, but that's not the way she's looking at it right now. Just because you've had a dose of her highly experimental vaccine and it didn't immediately turn you into a zombie, that doesn't mean you can pretend like you're Wen Ning! It's got, what, a fifty-fifty chance of working?"

"She was unsure how long it would take for the full effects to take hold." Lan Zhan shrugged. "She hopes it will be significantly better than fifty percent effective, but she won't know without data. The theory is sound, however."

"Great!" Wei Ying threw his hands up. "As we know, things always work in reality exactly the way they work in theory! Nothing has ever gone wrong with that!"

"Wei Ying, my actions were not driven by the vaccine," Lan Zhan said. "I would have done the same without it."

"I know!" Wei Ying shouted. "That isn't helping right now!"

He glared at Lan Zhan, realising suddenly that his breaths were coming in gulps and he was on the verge of crying. If he said anything else--or worse, if Lan Zhan said any more frustratingly sensible things--he was going to actually cry and Wei Ying couldn't do that. Not yet. Not here.

His legs suddenly went shaky under him and Wei Ying leaned against the wall for a moment before sliding down to sit. He tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling, curling his fingers in until the nails bit his palms as he willed his breathing and his face to go back to normal. There was a soft shuffling sound from the other side of the cell but he didn't look round. He closed his eyes and focused on breathing in and out, in and out. In and out.

When he opened his eyes, Lan Zhan was sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning against the wall. Somehow, he managed to make that look dignified and elegant. Wei Ying's breath caught in his throat. How did Lan Zhan look so beautiful sitting in a harshly-lit cell with blood smeared on his throat and tiredness clearly dragging at his shoulders?

What was Wei Ying supposed to do if this was the last time they were ever able to talk?

"I thought we'd have more time," he said quietly. "It's not supposed to be like this."

"I know."

Wei Ying scrubbed his hands over his face and sat up straighter. "I know we never said it and it's okay if you don't feel the same way, but I'm going to regret not saying it if you...so I'm just going to. You know. Say it."

"Wei Ying--"

"No," Wei Ying said sharply. "Don't tell me we can talk about it later or we don't need the words or some other kind of bullshit like that. I need the words, okay? I need to say this so I don't have to spend the rest of my life with another fucking regret I can't do anything about. Okay?"

Lan Zhan didn't say anything, but he dipped his head slightly in acknowledgement.

"Good. That's...good." Wei Ying took a deep breath. "It's...I love you. I'm in love with you. I love you so much it hurts and I spent years kicking myself for not figuring that out until it was too late, so I don't want to spend the rest of my life regretting not telling you. I just...I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, if you'd be okay with that and we get through this, because not being with you is the worst feeling. I want to be with you and sleep with you and come home to you every day. So you need to try really hard not to die, okay?"

Wei Ying felt like he'd run a marathon when he'd finished, breathless and sweaty even though he was still sitting on the floor. He kind of wanted to throw up. That was the most raw honesty he'd ever given anyone, but Lan Zhan wasn't looking at him with horror or even with shock: there was a tiny smile twitching at the corner of Lan Zhan's mouth. It was deeply annoying. He'd made a heart-felt speech, throwing his heart out on the floor between them, raw and bleeding, and Lan Zhan was...smiling?

"What?" Wei Ying said sharply.

"If I'd be okay with that?" Lan Zhan said quietly.

"I mean. Yeah." Wei Ying shrugged one shoulder. "I don't know if you'd be into that and I didn't want to presume."

"Wei Ying." The smile widened slightly. "I'm sorry I wasn't clearer, but yes. I'd be into that. I love you. I want all of that."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Even though I come with a shitton of baggage, a gift that most people find disgusting, and a kid?"

"Nothing about you is disgusting," Lan Zhan said firmly. "You're beautiful to me. You always have been and always will be. Your gift is a part of who you are and I love all of you, not just the easy parts."

Wei Ying felt his face heat. "Lan Zhaa-aan. Warn me if you're going to say things like that."

Lan Zhan shook his head. "I cannot. Sometimes things have to be said."

"You're too much," Wei Ying complained, but he couldn't hold in the smile, he just had to hope it didn't look too goofy. "I take that back, you're never too much. I'm the one who is too much in this..this thing. Relationship. I guess we can call it that?"

"Relationship," Lan Zhan said firmly. "You're never too much for me."

"Lan Zhan. Are you sure?"

"I've loved you since we were at school together," Lan Zhan said. "What do you think?"

Wei Ying shook his head, chuckling softly. If Lan Zhan had loved him for that long, with everything he'd been during his school and college days, then maybe Lan Zhan was right. He wasn't too much, at least not for Lan Zhan.

"I'm sorry I didn't make it clearer earlier," Lan Zhan said. "I'm sorry I didn't make time to clear the room for A-Yuan. I want you--both of you--in my life for as long as you'll have me."

"No apologies," Wei Ying said. "I get it. Words aren't your thing. And I know how busy we've been, it's not your fault. The room wasn't important."

"The room is important," Lan Zhan said. "And words are important to you."

Wei Ying shrugged. "Don't go turning into a chatterbox like me. I'm probably going to tell you I love you way too much now that I can, but I don't need you to keep up. Just...remind me sometimes, when I get weird and insecure?"

"I will."

Wei Ying allowed the words to settle into him, into his bones, etching memories of this moment into his mind as deeply as he could. Neither of them mentioned that Lan Zhan might not have time to remind him of anything. The intention was the part Wei Ying wanted to remember, even if Lan Zhan couldn't follow through.

He rested his head back against the wall again, content to let the silence fall between them while he watched Lan Zhan through half-lidded eyes. There was a hint of pink at the tips of Lan Zhan's ears but that was the only sign that he was aware of the observation. It was ridiculously cute and Wei Ying almost said so, but the quiet felt nice. He didn't want to break it.

That was one of the weird things about being with Lan Zhan. Usually Wei Ying couldn't let silence happen when there were people around him, it made something at the back of his mind itch with the compulsion to talk and the words wouldn't stay contained. He liked talking to Lan Zhan, no denying it, but that compulsive itch wasn't there. He wasn't spewing words out because he had to. It was as though something in his brain clicked into place when Lan Zhan was near and smoothed out the jagged edges.

Lan Zhan looked like he was meditating, back straight and eyes closed. Wei Ying smiled softly at him. The fear was still there, lurking deep inside him, but Wei Ying could feel exhaustion clouding over it and turning it toothless for now. He blinked, trying to force his eyes open, but it was too strong and he slipped into sleep without even noticing.

***

When he woke up, he was aching from sitting upright on the hard floor, but it was impossible to tell how long he'd been out. The cell was windowless and the lighting hadn't changed. Wei Ying looked over to Lan Zhan. He was still sitting cross-legged, but he was using the wall as a backrest now and his eyes were closed.

Wei Ying frowned. Something about Lan Zhan looked wrong. Panic made his heart race and he reached but there was nothing dead in the room. Lan Zhan was alive, not a zombie yet. That didn't make Wei Ying feel better, though, because something was definitely wrong.

It took him a minute of intense study to nail it down. Lan Zhan wasn't just leaning back against the wall, he was slumped against it. His shoulders were sagging. There were tight lines around his mouth. A faint sheen of sweat shone near his hairline under the harsh light.

"Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying said quietly.

Lan Zhan moved slowly, sluggishly, as though it took effort just to open his eyes and turn his head slightly. His voice was raspy. "Wei Ying."

"What's wrong?"

A long pause. "I don't know."

"Is it...is this what a late conversion looks like?" Wei Ying said. "I thought it would be faster."

The pause was even longer this time and Lan Zhan's jaw went tight for a moment before he finally spoke. "It usually is. This feels...I don't know." He hesitated and Wei Ying saw his throat work as though he was swallowing several times. "It hurts."

Wei Ying was scrambling forward, hand reaching through the bars towards him, without conscious thought. Lan Zhan's gaze sharpened, head snapping up.

"Wei Ying!" His voice broke on the last syllable. "No! Stay back!"

"But--"

"No!" Lan Zhan was breathing hard. "No, you can't. Don't...we don't know what this is. If I...don't let me hurt you. Stay away from the bars."

Wei Ying didn't want to, every instinct cried out to reach for Lan Zhan and hold him because he was in pain, but he couldn't. Lan Zhan was right. If this was conversion then Lan Zhan could change at any moment and Wei Ying was putting himself in danger. Lan Zhan could bite him on the arm just as easily as on the neck and Wei Ying knew he wouldn't have the strength to break free before Lan Zhan did it. Zombies were always stronger than their living bodies had been and they felt no pain.

Reluctantly, Wei Ying pulled his hand through the bars and scooted backwards until he hit the wall again. His face felt wet and he didn't bother to brush away the tears. Lan Zhan was shaking now, beads of sweat rolling down the side of his face. His jaw was clenched so tightly that Wei Ying could almost hear his teeth grinding.

"Lan Zhan," he said and then stopped, unable to think of a single useful or comforting thing to say. There was nothing he could do from here, anyway. He wasn't a doctor, he'd never seen someone become a zombie in slow-motion before. He'd never seen it, but he knew someone who had. "I'm going to get Wen Qing here."

Lan Zhan didn't protest, which was good because Wei Ying would have ignored him. He scrambled to his feet and banged on the cell door until the observation hatch opened, followed quickly by the door. The guard standing there was new, not someone he recognised, and he had the sense to step back out of arm's reach with his gun up before Wei Ying could take a step towards him.

He eyed the guard steadily. "You need to get Doctor Wen here. Now."

The guard gave him a wary look, but apparently Wei Ying looked sufficiently harmless and terrified to convince him that whatever was going on didn't require his gun. He lowered it and thumbed on his radio. Wei Ying nodded at him and slammed the door shut before he could hear the conversation.

"She'll be here," Wei Ying said to Lan Zhan. "She'll know what this is."

Lan Zhan nodded. He'd closed his eyes again and his shaking had subsided, although Wei Ying could see occasional shudders running through him. Wei Ying leaned against the wall and watched him. For a few minutes, the only sound in the cell was Lan Zhan's harsh breathing.

When he spoke, Wei Ying startled so hard he knocked his head on the wall.

"You should contact your siblings," Lan Zhan said.

"Lan Zhan, you need to save your strength," Wei Ying said quietly.

Lan Zhan shook his head and opened his eyes, fixing Wei Ying with a gaze he couldn't break away from. It made everything in his chest tighten, the way Lan Zhan was looking at him, as though he was drowning and Wei Ying was the anchor keeping him afloat.

"Contact them," Lan Zhan said. "They want you back."

"I promised Madame Yu."

"Things have changed."

"But--"

"Your sister asks about you every time anyone here talks to her. She thinks this is where you'd come if you ever came back."

Wei Ying almost choked. "I guess she was right."

"Mn." Lan Zhan's mouth tightened for a moment and he swallowed. His voice sounded rougher when he spoke. "Contact them. Promise me."

"I will." Wei Ying held three fingers up. Somehow they were only shaking a little. "I promise."

He'd almost done it so many times. He'd thought it was enough to know they were safe, that Lotus Pier was probably even safer than Cloud Recesses and Jin Zixuan had had the sense to send Jiang Yanli there before everything went completely to shit. Knowing that she'd asked after him even though he'd fucked up so badly, Wei Ying couldn't say no if Lan Zhan and his sister both wanted him to do it.

Lan Zhan nodded slowly and his eyes fluttered shut again. Wei Ying wrapped his arms around himself, holding in his sobs with a clenched jaw and bloody-minded stubbornness.

Minutes passed. Lan Zhan was still upright and his breathing sounded painful, but it told Wei Ying he was still alive so it was perfect.

Lan Zhan's jaw clenched for a moment before smoothing out. He didn't open his eyes as he said, "I told my brother the house should be yours for as long as you want it if anything happened to me."

"I don't want your house," Wei Ying said numbly.

"It's yours. And A-Yuan's. My brother will take care of you."

Wei Ying swiped tears away so he could glare at Lan Zhan properly. "Shut up. Just fucking shut up. Stop this, okay? You can't do all this deathbed promises shit because you're not dying and I'm not going to let you. Understand?"

Lan Zhan opened his eyes. He looked so tired and sad. "Wei Ying. I need to know you'll be all right."

"Of course I won't be! You're the love of my fucking life and I'm going to be so angry if you die just when we've finally figured our shit out! I won't let you!"

Before he could say more, the cell door opened and Wen Qing stepped in, glaring at both of them.

"You know everyone in this building can hear you?" she said.

Wei Ying threw up his hands. "I don't care!"

"Yes, I'd gathered that, but you need to stop shouting now because I've already got a headache and you're making it worse."

Wei Ying glared at her, but didn't say anything more. She looked exhausted, the circles under her eyes darker than he'd ever seen before. He probably didn't look any better, he knew, but he was too wired to feel the exhaustion right now. Into the silence, the soft sound of Lan Zhan groaning and slowly toppling sideways was almost a thunderclap.

***

Wei Ying paced the corridor outside the cell door restlessly. Wen Qing had been in there for ages. Although logically he knew it had only been a few minutes, it felt like forever since Lan Zhan fell and she shooed him out, claiming that his shouting and panicking wasn't helping anyone. It didn't feel any better out here, where the guard was eyeing him warily, but Wen Qing hadn't left any room for argument. He was sure the guard would have removed him from the cell if he hadn't left on his own feet.

There were no windows and Wei Ying didn't have a watch, so he had no idea what time it was. There had been a shift change with the guards since they'd first arrived, but that didn't tell him much.

His boots sounded loud on the tiled floor. Wei Ying couldn't stop pacing, restlessness keeping him moving even though he could feel exhaustion creeping in. It had been so long. Too long. What could Wen Qing possibly do through heavy bars that took this long?

Wei Ying was halfway down the corridor again when he heard a knock and then the sound of the cell door opening. He spun and rushed down, almost tripping in his haste. Wen Qing gave him an unimpressed look, but she stepped back so that he could get into the room.

Lan Zhan was lying on his side at the back of the cell. He'd stripped off his white coat and folded it to use as a pillow. There was a bandage on his neck. For a confused moment, Wei Ying wondered what had possessed Wen Qing to put her hands inside the bars to treat him, but then he noticed the clumsy way the bandage had been taped down, as if by inexpert, shaking fingers. Lan Zhan's eyes were closed and he was visibly shivering even though sweat beaded his face.

No, not shivering. Shaking, as though he was barely holding himself together against much worse. There were lines around his mouth, a frown cutting deep between his brows, and his jaw was clenched so tight the muscles stood out under the skin.

"Can't you give him something?" Wei Ying said. "He's in pain!"

Wen Qing's hand on his forearm was tight, fingers digging in uncomfortably. "I've given him what I can."

"Is this it? Is he converting? I thought it was faster than this."

"It is," Wen Qing said. "Usually. I've never seen anything like this before."

"So he might not be converting?" A tiny spark of hope unfurled and Wei Ying clung to it. "This might be something else?"

Wen Qing shrugged helplessly. "I don't know!"

"You're a doctor. You're an expert on this stuff. It's your vaccine he took!"

"And he's the first vaccinated human to get bitten by a zombie! I don't know what that looks like!" She took a breath. "I thought it would be like Wen Ning."

"Well, it's not."

Wen Qing's expression was grim. "I can see that. Even A-Ning's first bite didn't look like this."

Wei Ying opened his mouth to retort, but he was distracted by her wording. "First bite? I thought zombie bites don't do anything to him."

"They don't now, but the first couple of times, he got sick." Wen Qing shrugged. "For an hour or so. Low fever, slight headache, sore joints, but nothing this intense. We probably wouldn't have noticed it all if he hadn't been obviously bitten and we weren't sure what would happen."

"So this could be a sign the vaccine is working?"

"His body is doing something, but I can't tell what it is or what the outcome will be." She held up a small vial of blood. "I need to test this. Maybe it will tell me something."

"But there's a chance," Wei Ying insisted. "He might not convert."

"Or the reaction he's having right now could kill him," Wen Qing said bluntly.

"Kill him," Wei Ying echoed, feeling his tiny hope spark fade. "Fuck. That's not acceptable."

"It's better than being a zombie."

Wei Ying frowned. "Not by much."

"Not for him, maybe, but still better for everyone else." Wen Qing fixed him with a flat stare. "Think about it. Can a dead person run around and infect anyone? It's not a great outcome, but it would enable containment. If everyone is vaccinated and no more zombies can be made, we've ended the zombie apocalypse."

"By killing a lot of people."

"People who would have died from their zombie bites anyway. The vaccine would just make them stay dead."

Wei Ying gestured to Lan Zhan's shaking body. "Do you think people will take the vaccine if they know this happens and then they die?"

"We'll have to hope enough will to make a difference." Wen Qing's expression softened. "I'm sorry I can't promise anything. We just have to wait."

Wei Ying nodded. She was right. There wasn't anything he could do, it was Lan Zhan's fight now and he couldn't even go close enough to hold him.

"You should get some rest," Wen Qing said. "You look like shit."

"I'll stay here."

"I know you will." Wen Qing squeezed his wrist gently before releasing him. "A-Yuan is with Wen Ning. We haven't told him anything yet."

"Good. It can wait until we know what's...until it's over."

She nodded and left with one final squeeze of his wrist. Wei Ying watched Lan Zhan for a minute, but it was clear than Lan Zhan didn't see him. He was too deep inside himself now, trying to hold together through an internal fight that was burning him up. Wei Ying slid down to the flood and pulled his knees up against his chest, unable to take his gaze off Lan Zhan.

After a while, the cell door opened and someone stepped in. There was a soft thump as something landed near him and Wei Ying turned his head slightly. It was a pile of blankets and pillows. The guard offered him a polite nod and retreated, closing the cell door behind him.

Wei Ying considered pushing the bundle through to Lan Zhan, but it wouldn't fit through the bars. Lan Zhan wouldn't be able to do anything with it anyway, he realised. A red flush had spread over Lan Zhan's face, down his neck, and sweat was rolling off him. The lines of strain were as deep as ever and Wei Ying could hear the way his breath caught whenever a particularly violent shiver ran through him. Lan Zhan's harsh breathing was the only sound in the cell; Wei Ying couldn't stand to listen to it.

So he pulled the pile of blankets closer, made himself a nest against the wall, and began talking. He talked about anything that came into his head, old memories and ideas for new inventions, but he didn't stop. He talked and talked and talked, hoping the sound of his voice would find Lan Zhan in whatever darkness he'd sunk into.

It was the only hope he could cling to.

***

Wei Ying's voice had gone too hoarse to speak hours ago and he was now slumped back against the wall, staring sightlessly ahead of him. He might have been sleeping at one point, he couldn't be sure. There was an empty metal mug nearby that he didn't remember receiving or drinking, but his mouth was dry so it must have been a while ago. His throat hurt, everything hurt, and his brain was fuzzy with exhaustion. It took him a long time to rouse out of his stupor and even longer to work out what had disturbed him.

Lan Zhan was lying on his back, not moving. No shakes, no shivers, he was completely motionless. His face was chalky pale and his lips were almost the same colour. The lines around his eyes and mouth had smoothed out and his face was completely expressionless.

Panic made Wei Ying's heart race. Lan Zhan was lying so still, he couldn't even see if Lan Zhan was breathing, and he was so pale. His lips were bloodless and there were dark circles under his eyes. What if Lan Zhan had died while Wei Ying was out of it?

He scrambled out of his nest of blankets and pillows, barely remembering in time not to press against the bars and reach for Lan Zhan. He was probably kneeling within arm's reach of the bars, but he couldn't push himself back.

"Lan Zhan!" he croaked. "Wake up! Come on, you've got to wake up!"

No response, not even a twitch.

Wei Ying tried to yell a couple more times, unable to think through the fear and exhaustion clouding his mind, but there was nothing. It took him far too long to remember his gift and he wanted to kick himself when he did, but all the self-reproach in the world wouldn't help. Instead he focused and centred himself, searching deep inside for the strength to reach for the nearest dead things.

There was nothing inside the cell, not even the tiny fluttery feeling of dead mice. Wei Ying released a shaky breath and tried again, went further, just in case his senses were playing tricks. Somewhere to the east, he could feel a few tiny corpses that were fresh enough to almost call out to his gift. Dead birds, dead rodents, nothing large or dense enough to be human.

He reached further, feeling sweat break out on his back and face. There was a concentration of bodies somewhere beyond the Cloud Recesses walls. Wei Ying frowned for a couple of minutes, but they were free of the zombie tear-bite-fight urge that made them so difficult to control. It must be the burial ground for the sanctuary. Some of the corpses felt old as he sifted through. Definitely a burial ground then.

Wei Ying pulled his senses back in, but the cell was still death-free. Lan Zhan was alive.

He pulled in a shaky breath and felt a sob emerge when he breathed out. Lan Zhan was still alive and that meant there was hope. This time he didn't hold himself back: he shuffled right up to the bars and started banging on them with his metal cup, trying to shout even though it made his throat hurt, until Lan Zhan finally twitched.

Wei Ying held his breath as Lan Zhan's eyelashes fluttered and then, miraculously, his eyes opened. Lan Zhan blinked slowly, looking so sleepy and confused that Wei Ying's heart stuttered. What if he was alive but everything inside him had been burned out by the fever? He waited, barely daring to breathe, as Lan Zhan turned his head slightly and blinked again.

"Wei...Ying?"

The voice was scratching and low, barely audible, but Wei Ying heard it and a sob escaped before he could stop it. Lan Zhan remembered him! He was awake, he looked fever-free, and he hadn't forgotten Wei Ying's name.

"Hi," Wei Ying said, pressing against the bars. "Hi. You're awake."

After a long pause, Lan Zhan made a soft affirmative sound.

"You had me scared there," Wei Ying said. "I thought you were...but you're not. You're awake. How are you feeling?"

Lan Zhan blinked again and some of the sleepiness melted away from his eyes. His throat worked on a dry-sounding swallow. "Thirsty. Tired."

"Yeah, you've had a high fever for a long time. I'm not surprised. I'll see if I can get you some water."

"Wei Ying." Lan Zhan's voice was still hoarse, but it sounded firmer. "You can't be so close. It's not safe."

"The fever's burned out and you're still alive."

Lan Zhan's lips flatted stubbornly. "Wei Ying."

"Fine, I'll get back." He scooted back until he was out of arm's reach. "Okay?"

"Mn."

"We should test you," Wei Ying said. "I'll get a test and some water. Sounds good?"

Lan Zhan made another affirmative sound and his eyes fluttered shut again. Wei Ying watched him for a moment, but he could see the slight movement of Lan Zhan's chest rising and falling this time, so he didn't panic. He scrubbed at his face, wiping tears away with the cuffs of his hoodie and wishing he could wash his face. That would help, he was sure, but he didn't want to leave Lan Zhan yet. Judging from the way the guard looked at him when she opened the door, it didn't do much to improve the way he looked, but Wei Ying was too tired to care. She wasn't anyone he recognised, although he had never been great with faces.

"I need a test and some water," he said without preamble.

She raised an eyebrow. "A test?"

Wei Ying gestured. "A zombie test! The thing I built? I need one. Maybe more than one. And some water in a bottle or cup that will fit through the bars in there."

Her other eyebrow lifted. "Sir?"

"And get Wen Qing down here! Lan Zhan is awake and not a zombie, I need her to take a look!"

"Yes, sir."

He closed the door and sat down in his blanket nest, pulling one of the pillows onto his lap. It helped to have something to hold onto and if he couldn't hold Lan Zhan then a pillow would have to do. Lan Zhan's eyes opened again a couple of minutes later, looking brighter and more alert than before. Moving slowly, stiffly, he rolled onto his side. The effort looked like it cost him something and he stayed there for a while, breathing quickly. Then, his arms visibly shaking, he pushed himself upright and sat for a moment, swaying slightly. Wei Ying's heart was in his mouth but he couldn't do anything to help and he bit down all the worried sounds he wanted to make.

After a minute's indecision, Lan Zhan allowed himself to lean back against the cell wall, but he stayed upright. He was breathing hard and he closed his eyes, a faint line appearing between his brows.

"Lan Zhan?" Wei Ying said softly. "Are you alright?"

The corner of Lan Zhan's mouth twitched. "Dizzy. Tired."

"I'm not surprised," Wei Ying said, surprising himself with a small chuckle. "You've had a nasty fever. Are you in any pain?"

Lan Zhan shook his head. "Just tired."

"Still thirsty?"

"Mn."

"That's a good sign."

"Wei Ying."

There was a warning in his tone that Wei Ying chose to ignore. "Wen Qing will be here any minute now. We'll get you tested and then we'll know for sure."

"No unnecessary risks."

"You think Wen Qing would let me do anything risky? Don't you know her at all?"

There was no response, but Wei Ying could see the ghost of a smile cross Lan Zhan's lips for a moment. It was so faint that he might have missed it if he wasn't watching Lan Zhan so closely. The small spark of hope deep inside Wei Ying rekindled, sending restless flutters through his gut. He stood up, preparing to march to the door and demand the guard personally hunt down Wen Qing. It opened before he could take more than a step towards it, to reveal Wen Qing and Wen Ning. That pulled Wei Ying up short. Why were they both here?

"Where's A-Yuan?" he said before he could stop himself. "I thought he was having a sleepover with you."

Wen Ning's smile was warm and reassuring as he followed his sister into the room and began setting up a small folding table in the corner. Somehow he'd carried it and a box of supplies even though they both looked awkwardly heavy.

"A-Yuan is having a sleepover with his friend Jingyi," Wen Ning said. "He asked this afternoon and I thought you wouldn't mind."

Wei Ying nodded, trying to do the calculations. This was the second night? They'd been here a full night, a day, and now however many hours into another night? So that meant Lan Zhan had been bitten over twenty-four hours ago and he was still alive. He tried to keep the hope from rising too high, but Lan Zhan had come through the fever and it had been over twenty-four hours and he was still here.

"Lan Zhan needs a test," Wei Ying said.

Wen Qing nodded. "That's why A-Ning is here. He's going to do the test."

Wen Ning was pulling on a thick boiler suit with a hood that would cover most of his exposed skin. A zombie could bite through it, Wei Ying had seen it happen, but it would be more difficult.

Wen Ning grinned as he zipped it up. "He can't kill me or turn me, but sometimes it's nice if I can avoid the bites."

"Uh, right." Wei Ying bit his lip for a moment. "Can you give him some water?"

Wen Ning shot a questioning glance at Wen Qing and she nodded. "It won't hurt him. He should probably have some IV fluids if we're able to take him out of here, but a bottle of water is a good start."

Wen Ning tucked two test devices into a pocket and picked up a bottle of water. He glanced over at them. "You should probably step out until I'm done."

Wei Ying wanted to argue--Lan Zhan barely looked awake, never mind dangerous--but that would just waste time. He allowed Wen Qing to pull him out of the cell and they locked the door. She didn't fight him for a position at the tiny viewing slot: he pulled the cover back and watched, barely registering the pain as he bit his lip.

Wen Ning approached the bars slowly, as though he was trying not to startle a wild animal. Lan Zhan didn't respond at all, not even a twitch when the door opened with a soft snick and swung inward. He allowed Wen Ning to lift his hand and administer the first test.

Wei Ying could barely breathe.

Wen Ning uncapped the water bottle and held it out for a moment before nudging it into Lan Zhan's free hand. Lan Zhan's eyes opened slightly as he lifted the bottle. His hand was shaking but he managed to gulp down several sips, only spilling a little down his chin. He put the bottle down but kept his hand around it.

Wen Ning's body was angled so that Wei Ying couldn't see his face when he checked the test. He couldn't see the window in the device, either. He kind of wanted to throw up, but he swallowed down and kept watching as Wen Ning got out a second device and gently pricked Lan Zhan's finger again.

Wei Ying pressed his face closer to the door, as though that would somehow make it easier to see what was going on in there.

After a wait that felt like a thousand years, Wen Ning turned towards the door. A broad smile was lighting up his face and he held up both tests so Wei Ying could see the bright, beautiful blue result. Negative.

Wei Ying threw the door open, ignoring Wen Qing and the guard. He distantly heard the clang as the second door swung back against the bars, but he was too busy hurling himself down at Lan Zhan's side, reaching out to wrap his arms around Lan Zhan and bury his face in Lan Zhan's neck. He smelled of sweat and sickness, but underneath that was the faint hint of sandalwood that had always been 'home' to Wei Ying.

Wei Ying immediately burst into tears. Huge, wrenching sobs that hurt his throat, all the fear and misery of the last day pouring out at once in an unstopped wave. He clung to Lan Zhan, barely able to breathe and unable to stop crying now that he'd started. He cried until he was too exhausted to keep going and it felt like every bit of moisture in his body had been forced out. Then he stayed there for a while longer as shuddery sobs gradually faded away.

Eventually he became aware that a warm hand was rubbing slow circles on his back and he sat up slightly, enough to see Lan Zhan's face without dislodging his hand. Up close, he looked even more tired, but there was warmth in his eyes and a relief that matched Wei Ying's.

Wei Ying cupped his jaw carefully, feeling a smile tug at his lips when Lan Zhan leaned into it.

"Hey," he said softly. "I think you're going to be okay."

"I'll need to do more tests," Wen Qing said sharply, and then her voice softened, "but I think you're probably right."

Wei Ying's smile widened. "Guess you're stuck with me, then."

Lan Zhan's smile was tired but so beautiful, it would have brought tears to Wei Ying's eyes if he'd had any left.

"Good," he said.

Wei Ying had to kiss him gently for that and it was perfect.

***

Wei Ying stepped back into the centre of the room and examined his work critically, nibbling on the end of his paintbrush. The mural was looking good, but he wasn't sure there were enough rabbits. A-Yuan had asked for a whole field of rabbits on this wall, and although Wei Ying had painted dozens of white bunnies doing everything from napping to tumbling gymnastics, it was hard to tell whether that was enough. Toddlers could be complicated.

The rest of the mural was done and Wei Ying was confident it would get the A-Yuan seal of approval. The blue sky and green field faded into twilight across the room, with a red sunset around the door. The wall where A-Yuan's bed would be placed had planets and comets against a dark background and the ceiling above it was a starfield with a couple of Wei Ying's favourite constellations picked out in paint that would glow in the dark. He'd found it in one of the boxes Lan Zhan had cleared out, still unopened. Lan Zhan didn't know where it had come from, but Wei Ying had declared it was fate and designed the mural to use it.

Clearing out the room had taken a week after they were released from the medical centre with instructions to take it easy. Wei Ying was sure they could have done it faster, but Wen Qing kept finding excuses to check on them and glaring if she thought Lan Zhan looked too tired. Lan Zhan didn't argue with her, which meant he probably was tired and didn't like Wei Ying worrying about him, so they worked slowly and took breaks like sensible adults.

Wei Ying found he minded it less when those breaks turned into makeout sessions. He was pretty sure Lan Zhan had figured that out and was doing it deliberately. That was fine. If Lan Zhan wanted to reward him for making sensible choices with kissing and maybe getting a bit--or a lot--handsy, Wei Ying could hardly argue.

After it was cleared out, the room turned out to be larger than either of them had expected. It was more than big enough for a toddler bed. They could probably fit a regular single in it when A-Yuan grew taller, and there would still be space for the small chest of drawers and wardrobe they'd discovered when they were clearing it out. Those had been scuffed and scratched, the runners on the drawers broken, but one of the Wen uncles was a carpenter and he'd taken them away promising they'd be good as new when he finished with them. He was also building A-Yuan a sturdy little bed instead of the folding one, which Wei Ying was grateful for: Jingyi had introduced A-Yuan to bed jumping during their sleepover and A-Yuan didn't understand why he couldn't jump on a folding bed.

Toddlers were complicated and hard to reason with. Wei Ying loved him with a fierceness he'd never known he had inside himself.

There was an empty patch down in the bottom corner of the field that felt wrong. Wei Ying squinted at it, trying to picture what he could put there. A pair of rabbits would fit, but what could they be doing there? He'd already exhausted every rabbit dance, tumble, and jump he could think of.

He wanted to ask Lan Zhan for his opinion, but the Jingshi was empty. A-Yuan was at daycare and Lan Zhan was in a video meeting with his brother, Wen Qing, and the leaders of several other sanctuaries, discussing plans for expanding the vaccine trial. In the weeks since Lan Zhan had survived his zombie bite, results had come in from two more vaccinated people who had survived their bites. There had been no conversions in the vaccinated group. Lan Huan had declared that nobody from Cloud Recesses would be going out if they weren't vaccinated except for life or death emergencies. Wei Ying's arm still ached a little from his dose three days ago. Wen Qing was still unhappy with the high fever and pain, and improving that was the focus of the next iteration of the vaccine, but everyone agreed that for healthy adults, a vaccine with a high survival rate was better than no vaccine, so the trial was expanding quickly.

Jiang Cheng was probably in that meeting. Lotus Pier hosted one of the labs, which meant that he and Jiang Yanli had both been vaccinated as soon as the results started coming in. As promised, Wei Ying had contacted them while Lan Zhan was still in the medical centre. He'd made the call from a chair next to Lan Zhan's bed, one hand gripping Lan Zhan's so tightly it was amazing it wasn't broken by the end. It had been hard and emotional, but at the end, Wei Ying felt a hundred pounds lighter. They had a regularly scheduled video call together now and Wei Ying planned to visit as soon as travelling was safe enough. Hopefully today's meeting would be a step towards that.

Lan Zhan had been on light duties since he was bitten. They both had. They still had classes to teach, but Lan Zhan's other duties had been scaled back and Wei Ying was only allowed in the lab for a couple of afternoons a week. It had given him plenty of time to work on A-Yuan's room and if it meant that he spent a few of his free afternoons in bed with Lan Zhan, he'd decided to accept the gift and not worry about the work he wasn't doing. They usually napped...eventually.

He was fairly sure their light schedule was on Wen Qing's orders. It couldn't last forever, Lan Zhan was almost back to full strength, but Wei Ying was happy to take advantage of it while they had the time.

Wei Ying checked the time and sighed. Lan Zhan should have been back by now. They'd had plans for the afternoon before Lan Huan dragged him away for the meeting. Plans for things they couldn't have at night while A-Yuan was still only a privacy screen away. It was hard being in the honeymoon phase of a relationship and living with a clingy bat-eared toddler who didn't have walls and a door at night to give everyone a little privacy. Wei Ying wasn't ashamed to admit that he had needs and A-Yuan made fulfilling those needs difficult. Hopefully their schedules would stay light until A-Yuan's room was finished, but it wasn't fair that Lan Zhan could get kidnapped for meetings despite his doctor's orders.

Wei Ying frowned at the empty corner of the rabbit field. There had to be a rabbit he hadn't done yet. He couldn't have exhausted every potential bunny shenanigan on one wall. Maybe something would come to him after he cleaned up, that was usually the way.

He was cleaning his paintbrushes in the bathroom when he heard the familiar sound of the Jingshi's door sliding open. He shook the bushes out quickly and dumped them on the rag he kept there for them, almost dropping one in his haste. Lan Zhan was just bending to unlace his boots as Wei Ying practically sprinted out of the bathroom; he then had to catch himself against a wall because, fuck, Lan Zhan was beautiful. It was ridiculous that it sometimes took him by surprise because he'd known Lan Zhan for so long, but somehow it did. It made the breath catch in his throat and butterflies stampede in his belly. When Lan Zhan stood up and a soft smile appeared as their eyes met, Wei Ying's heart hammered in his chest so fast it seemed impossible that Lan Zhan couldn't hear it.

There were snowflakes glittering in his hair and on his shoulders, sparkling in the light so that he looked unearthly and lovely. Wei Ying smiled helplessly.

"It's snowing," he said, immediately feeling ridiculous.

Lan Zhan's smile widened slightly and he felt better. "It is."

"I didn't know it was going to snow."

Lan Zhan shrugged. "It's cold."

"Yeah, but." Wei Ying gestured. "Snow. Do you think there will be enough for A-Yuan to play in?"

"By morning, yes."

"Good, he'll like that."

Wei Ying watched as Lan Zhan took off his long white coat and hung it up, brushing away the melting snowflakes. Somehow, the blood stains had been cleaned away as if they'd never been there. Wei Ying had some suspicions about the gift of one of the laundry aunties: A-Yuan's clothes always came back clean no matter how much paint and mud he got into. The scar from Lan Zhan's zombie bite still stood out red and angry-looking, just above his collar. Wei Ying had mixed feelings about it.

Lan Zhan tilted his head slightly, a questioning look in his eyes, and Wei Ying realised he was still standing with a hand on the wall instead of in Lan Zhan's arms where he should be. He shook himself out of his thoughts and closed the distance to rectify that, sighing as Lan Zhan's hands landed on his hips to pull him in.

They kissed there, in front of the door, slow and sweet. Lan Zhan's nose was cold when it brushed Wei Ying's cheek but his lips were warm and he tasted of tea. Wei Ying buried a hand in his hair where the snowflakes made his fingers wet and strands of hair clung and caught on them. He loved kissing like this, an unhurried greeting and re-acquaintance that didn't have to lead to anything else but could, if they wanted it to. He loved all of their kisses. The desperately horny ones and the ones where Lan Zhan drove him slowly out of his mind and the lazy makeouts just for the joy of kissing. It was all good and perfect, because it was Lan Zhan. The words that Lan Zhan didn't always say, he shaped into Wei Ying's lips and skin with his mouth.

When they parted, Lan Zhan's eyes had darkened and a shiver ran down Wei Ying's spine. Apparently the kiss was going to lead to something.

"How was the meeting?" he asked, because they'd have to talk about it anyway and getting the discussion out of the way now would stop it hanging over them later.

Lan Zhan made a soft sound that from anyone else, if it had been slightly louder, might have been a snort. "Contentious."

Wei Ying wrinkled his nose. "Guess that's why you were gone so long."

"Mn."

"Did they make a decision?"

"The trial will be expanded. Lotus Pier will match our production rates."

"What about the holdouts?"

"They are willing to concede I'm alive and healthy," Lan Zhan said dryly. "They want further proof that it works before they will join the trial."

"But they're not going to stop it?"

"No, they have agreed that this vaccine is not dangerous and they won't attempt to stop the research."

"Good."

"Did you need to know anything else?"

"Huh?"

Lan Zhan's hands slipped a little lower, firmly onto Wei Ying's ass. "Is my report on the meeting sufficient?"

The look in Lan Zhan's eyes made Wei Ying swallow. He nodded his head. Heat was starting to simmer low in his belly, just from the way Lan Zhan was looking at him and the feel of Lan Zhan's hands on his ass.

"A-Yuan will eat supper at daycare," Lan Zhan said. "He won't be home for at least two hours."

"Oh." Wei Ying swallowed again. "That's more time than I thought we'd have."

"Mn."

Wei Ying smiled. "Guess we should make the most of it, huh?"

Lan Zhan didn't say anything, but he began walking Wei Ying towards the bed, which was an answer in itself.

***

The empty patch in the field was still nagging at the edge of Wei Ying's mind as he lay in bed, tangled with Lan Zhan and deliciously sore in all the right places. He dropped a kiss on Lan Zhan's shoulder, because it was right there next to his mouth, and Lan Zhan stirred.

"What's on your mind?" Lan Zhan asked, sounding a little hoarse.

We Ying grinned. Lan Zhan was really good at blow jobs. It was the intensity that did it for him, the way Lan Zhan looked up at him with his mouth stretched wide and his tongue doing incredible things on his cock. He was powerless against that and Lan Zhan knew it.

Lan Zhan's ears went slightly pink, as though he knew what Wei Ying was thinking. He probably did. "Wei Ying."

"Ah?"

"You're worrying about something."

"I'm not worried!" Lan Zhan didn't say anything but he didn't need to. Wei Ying grimaced. "It's not worry. It's just...I don't know how to finish A-Yuan's mural."

"Hm?"

Wei Ying watched himself tracing patterns on Lan Zhan's chest, until Lan Zhan captured his hand and made another interrogative sound. He softened it with a kiss on Wei Ying's knuckles, but the message was still strong and clear.

Wei Ying sighed and lifted his head so he could meet Lan Zhan's eyes properly. "It's the rabbit field. There's a space that looks weird, but I've run out of ideas. I think I'm bunnied out."

Lan Zhan didn't laugh. He smiled, but it was a warm expression that made Wei Ying feel better and much less like he was being unnecessarily dramatic about the mural.

"Can I help?" Lan Zhan asked.

"I don't know." Wei Ying shrugged. "Maybe if you take a look, you'll see the problem."

"Do you mind?"

"Why would I mind?"

"I don't want to spoil your big reveal."

Wei Ying stared at him for a moment before laughing. "You thought...? Oh, no, I thought you were sneaking peeks already! I don't want A-Yuan to see it until the big day but you can absolutely see it! Come on, let's go."

He sat up and grabbed Lan Zhan's hand to start tugging him into motion. Lan Zhan made a small sound that Wei Ying decided was definitely a laugh and didn't resist. He did pause for a moment to pull on sweatpants and Wei Ying took the hint to pull on his boxers and a t-shirt before hurrying to A-Yuan's room. He was glad they'd dressed the moment he pushed the door open: it would have felt weird to stand around naked in the room their kid would call his own in a few days.

Lan Zhan's expression as he stood in the middle of the room and turned was...the only word Wei Ying could think of was "awe-struck". It made Wei Ying feel pleased and incredibly embarrassed all at once, a confusing welter of emotions he didn't know what to do with. His face was probably bright red if the heat he could feel was any gauge.

"Think he'll like it?" Wei Ying asked quietly.

Lan Zhan's eyes were shining when he eventually turned towards Wei Ying. "It's perfect."

"Guess I've got better since my doodles in your text book margins?"

"Wei Ying, your art was never just doodles."

Wei Ying shrugged. "Whatever. Anyway, can you see what I'm missing in the bunny field?"

Lan Zhan was probably going to argue with him another day about the artistic merits of his doodles, but he clearly put that aside and swung round to look at the field of rabbits playing under a clear blue sky. He studied it for a couple of minutes while Wei Ying tried not to look at the gap that was starting to feel like a glaring, pulsing siren.

"Where are we in this?" Lan Zhan asked.

"Huh?"

Lan Zhan gestured. "You've put A-Yuan and all our family and friends in the field, but where are we?"

"I didn't do that?"

Lan Zhan stepped forward and tapped a bunny who was scowling furiously and thumping its back foot. "This is clearly your brother."

Two bunnies bouncing on a bed. "A-Yuan and Jingyi."

A rabbit with a serene expression and two smaller rabbits chasing it. "My brother and his assistants."

A bunny with colourful paint on its front paws and several little painted footprints behind him. "Wen Ning, after his finger painting session at the daycare."

Wei Ying looked at the mural and couldn't deny it. Now that it had been pointed out, it was easy to see which rabbit or group of rabbits represented each person in his life. Wen Qing was running towards A-Yuan and Jingyi with a roll of gauze in her mouth. Jiang Yanli was making a pot of carrot soup.

"Where are we?" Lan Zhan asked again.

Wei Ying looked at the empty patch of field. Everyone in the field was doing something they loved, usually with the people they loved. Everyone was in their happy place, even Wen Qing, because patching up children who bounced off a bed was a problem that made her happy in a weird way. He hadn't been conscious that he was doing it when he painted them all, but now that he'd seen it, he couldn't unsee it.

What was his happy place? What was their happy place, him and Lan Zhan?

His sketchpad was on the step of the ladder he'd been using when he painted the ceiling. Wei Ying grabbed it and sat down cross-legged in front of the mural to doodle some ideas.

The paint pots and clean brushes were set out neatly on a cloth when he was ready to start painting. He was too deep in his focus to question how they'd got there. He didn't notice the Jingshi doors opening and closing, or hear the excited chatter of a small boy as he narrated everything he'd done that day on the way to his bath. When Wei Ying finally emerged, it was with a deep sense of satisfaction that he'd done it: he'd finished the mural and everything in it was exactly what needed to be there.

In the bottom corner of the rabbit field were two rabbits, a black one and a white one. They were cuddled up together, almost looking like they might be sleeping, except the black rabbit had one eye open and looking towards the bunnies bouncing on the bed in the centre of the field. Wei Ying smiled. It was perfect.

He stood up, only noticing as he did so that the little house was quiet and still. He stretched out the stiffness in his joints and padded silently to the door. When he opened it, the soft sound of Lan Zhan's voice filtered in. A small, sleepy voice asked a question Wei Ying couldn't quite pick out; Lan Zhan's answering rumble filled Wei Ying with happiness.

On bare, silent feet, he moved around the screen until he could stand just behind Lan Zhan's shoulder where he was kneeling beside A-Yuan's bed. A-Yuan was too absorbed by the story they were reading to pay attention to Wei Ying, but that was okay. All Wei Ying needed was this: the tiny family he'd built and filled his heart with, warm, sleepy, and safe together in their home.