//Progress! sadness but progress! we are on the home stretch//

They should've stayed at LWJ's. They shouldn't have gone so soon after LWJ left.

Yes, WWX did take the blankets, but they were really nice. Bundled in them was also probably the only reason that A-Yuan managed to escape the crash unscathed.

Who the fuck drove an SUV into the side of a car!!!

“Can we stay here a while?” A-Y asked curiously. “This place is huge Baba.”

“Oh, first you didn’t want to be here, now you don’t want to leave?” WWX tweaked his nose. “Sorry Baobao, we’ve gotta go. You have school in the morning.”

“Awww,” A-Y pouted.

“No one’s making us move,” WWX assured him. “We’re just going back home and Mr Lan Er-Gege isn’t coming with us.”

“Okay,” A-Y said morosely.

“Hey, Baobao, we’re going home, cheer up,” WWX tried to make him feel better. "We don't have to see any of these bad people after we get on the plane again.”

“Hmm,” WWX hummed as he watched LWJ walk away. “Running, running, far, far away.”

WWX looked at his awkward looking boy.

“Just like us, huh, Baobao,” WWX ruffled his hair.

“Are we going to move again?” A-Yuan pouted. “Is he gonna make us move?”

A-Y and LWJ looked at each other, pleased to have WWX laughed. Then they froze when they saw e/o’s eyes.

“Aiya. You two,” WWX’s laugh smothered to a soft chuckle. “So awkward.”

“Mn,” LWJ nodded, ashamed of himself. “I have to leave work soon, please. Anything from this house. Anything you need.”

“Lan Zhan!” WWX laughed for the first time since he ended his shift. “We’re not taking your blankets.”

“But Baba,” A-Yuan said, already knowing the joke and willing to play along. “The blankets are really nice.”

That got WWX to laugh even harder.

“That was one time!” WWX protested. “They were nice blankets.”

“Blankets that I had to pay for when the hotel bill came through,” LWJ argued.

“They were nice blankets,” WWX insisted.

“They were,” LWJ nodded. “And the ones in my bedroom are as well, you may take them.”

“Please feel free to use any of my house’s amenities.”

“Amenities?” A-Y asked curiously.

“You may use the rooms in my house, like the bathroom for a wash, or the library for books, or even take some blankets from the bedroom,” LWJ smiled softly at A-Y.

“Blankets?” A-Y questioned in confusion.

but the boy seemed too subdued to do anything but eat LWJ’s home cooking.

“I have a flight for you to get back home,” LWJ said, quietly and like it broke his heart to say so. “LQY will take you there.”

“Really?” WWX asked skeptically.

“Mn,” LWJ nodded.

So exhausted were WWX and A-Yuan, that they slept right through dinner and woke up early the next morning. They managed to match LWJ’s waking time. Breakfast was awkward. WWX was anxious that A-Yuan would say something that WWX wouldn’t have to lie about,

“Can’t you see the family resemblance, HGJ?” WWX scoffed at the man. “I birthed him from my own body.”

With that, WWX turned and walked away, uncaring of the emotional devastation he’d just set off within LWJ.

“You’ll always be the same weak pathetic thing I broke up with.”

“WY!” LWJ was anxious to keep WWX at his side even if he turned away from him. “The– The child.”

“What about A-Yuan?” WWX eyed LWJ warily.

“Is he… is he yours?” LWJ struggled to ask.

You didn’t fix anything while I was there. Who’s to say that the next time someone pressures you about me, you don’t fold like a wet house of cards, hmm? You’ve already done it once.”

“I am better now!” LWJ argued.

“No, you’re still the same,” WWX brushed him off.

“I have fixed the reasons!” LWJ said desperately. “There is no one who can stand between us now!”

WWX chuckled darkly.

“Ah, naive, silly, little Lan,” WWX sneered at him. “You thought that fixing things /after/ I’d broken up with you would… what? Make me want to come back?

“So what?” WWX rolled his eyes.

“The Elders don’t have a say anymore. Ge already has children. They don’t need anymore from me,” LWJ danced around the truth.

“Why would I care about that?” WWX scoffed. “HGJ, we’re broken up. I broke up with you for a reason.”

He was going to ignore how it made his heart soar. LWJ had made his bed, he had to lie in it, without WWX. There was no way WWX was ever going to go back to him.

“I’ve overthrown Ge and Shufu, they cannot decide anything for me anymore,” LWJ added. “I am Gusu’s leader now.”

“Yeah, sure,” WWX bitterly laughed. “That’s why you married someone else, right?”

“I didn’t,” LWJ rushed to correct him. “I did not marry FMJ. Her family is gone, they have no sway over my marriage.”

“So?” WWX asked, cuttingly.

He wasn’t going to be happy about that knowledge.

After the cream was applied and A-Yuan went back to sleep, WWX gestured for LWJ to follow him into the corridor. Obediently, LWJ obeyed.

“Why are you doing this?” WWX demanded, trying to keep quiet and not wake his son.

“WY–”

“WWX”

“WY,” LWJ stubbornly insisted. “I love you–”