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Shen Wei looks soft in sleep, bathed in the light of the lone lamp he left on in deference to the late hour and, Zhao Yunlan suspects, because he didn’t want to disturb Da Qing, who is curled around himself in the corner, fast asleep.
The soft fall of Shen Wei’s hair over his brow leaves those lovely eyes in shadow behind the lenses of his glasses. He hadn't gotten the chance to take them off and, judging by the soft fall of papers across his lap and onto the floor, had been in the process of grading. Technically, he should have had a TA to do this for him, but Shen Wei was soft and sentimental in all the best ways and had been reluctant to fill place Li Qian had left behind, still hoping that she would return. It was one of the things Zhao Yunlan loved best about him, his determination to care for other people. The low light catches gently the soft curve of Shen Wei’s cheekbone, dips into the hollow underneath. The hollow that seems deeper than it has been, deeper than Zhao Yunlan is entirely comfortable with. He frowns a little, disliking how Shen Wei’s constant and never-ending fatigue shows through even in his sleep. Zhao Yunlan has been frowning about Shen Wei entirely too often lately, which really shouldn't be happening at all, considering how much Shen Wei usually makes him feel like he's floating on air.
Shen Wei has perfected the art of seeming untouchable, invincible, so well that even Zhao Yunlan, who loves him so much it feels like he will bleed from the ache of it sometimes, believes it. Perhaps it is because he wants to believe it, because they both want to believe it, that they allow themselves to live in the comfortable lie just a little longer. They allow themselves as many moments as possible free from the reality that something is waiting for them at the end of this path they follow and forge, outside of their little bubble of bone-deep relief at finally finding each other.
Zhao Yunlan doesn’t know how long Shen Wei has waited for him, because it is obvious that he has been waiting, but Zhao Yunlan knows that he himself has been waiting, wanting for Shen Wei his entire life. There was something cosmic that slid into place behind his sternum the first time he saw Shen Wei from that window, the first time their fingers brushed together in Da Qing’s fur, the first time Shen Wei held onto him a little too long, looked into his eyes a little too deeply for someone he had never met before.
At night, in moments like these, Zhao Yunlan feels his love for Shen Wei like a physical thing. It winds itself around his throat and through his chest and curls up behind his nose and eyes. He feels it in his fingertips and in his toes and in the pit of his stomach, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself, has never loved anyone so much as he loves this man in front of him. This lovely, precious man who slots like an inevitability into his life. Shen Wei shifts, his head tilting further into the light and another few sheets of paper sliding down the curve of his body to join the pile on the floor. The movement, or perhaps the soft susurrus of papers moving against each other, penetrates Shen Wei’s sleeping senses, and Zhao Yunlan watches his eyes blink slowly open, long lashes sweeping up and down, elegant in the way that only Shen Wei can make such a simple movement seem elegant.
Zhao Yunlan had never noticed anyone’s eyelashes before Shen Wei, much less thought of them as elegant. But how could Zhao Yunlan not notice this piece of Shen Wei when he cherished every little sliver of him, cataloguing every wrinkle and pore and fleck of color in his eyes and holding each new discovery close to his greedy, grasping heart.
Shen Wei's precious eyes catch and hold Zhao Yunlan's, and he feels like he can breathe again. Shen Wei's gaze is still slightly fuzzy from sleep, and from the confusion of finding himself dozing on the couch still in his waistcoat and with a blanket of half-graded papers, but they are warm and alive and looking at Zhao Yunlan. The thing squeezing his lungs loosens a bit, calming and seeping away a little, migrating to curl behind the spread of his ribcage.
He hadn’t realized how scared he was, terrified down somewhere deep in his bones, that somehow he would never see them again. That somehow he had already looked into them for the last time and not known it. That someday, they will bore into him with Shen Wei's particular, focused intensity for the last time. Just weeks ago, Shen Wei would never have dreamed of falling asleep in his suit on the couch, had scolded Zhao Yunlan for napping in that very spot just yesterday, citing research about circadian rhythms and REM cycles.
“Zhao Yunlan?” comes Shen Wei’s voice, hushed in the stillness of the room, but rich and full and wonderful, still slightly raspy from his unplanned trip through the land of Nod. “Zhao Yunlan?” he asks again, rising slightly and tilting his head, birdlike and delicate in all the ways that Hei Pao Shi and Professor Shen never get to be, in all the ways that make Zhao Yunlan want to swaddle him up so tightly that he can barely breathe and never let him leave their little island.
The second utterance of his name shakes him out of his head, and he realizes that he has been standing at the edge of the ring of light, staring at Shen Wei in the dim cast of their living room. He smiles a little and feels, suddenly, tears prick at the corners of his eyes.
“Aiya, Shen Wei,” he says, shooting for casual and landing somewhere between wholly besotted and unbearably fond. “How lucky am I that I get to have such a handsome beauty waiting for me on my ratty old couch?” It comes out much more seriously then he had intended, much more of the swirl of emotions mixing behind his teeth leaking out into the air around them.
Shen Wei blinks slowly at him, once, twice, and then his lips curve just as slowly upward, eyes softening even further as he looks at Zhao Yunlan, the motion suffusing his whole body with light. And they are looking, gazing at each other, caught in the warm silence of the night, and they are in love.
Utterly, irrevocably, world-shatteringly in love.
Zhao Yunlan feels totally foolish and totally uncaring of it. If the rest of his life could be just like this, Da Qing sleeping in the corner of their apartment, and Shen Wei in front of him, looking at him and loving him, Zhao Yunlan would welcome it in an instant.
“Where else would I be?” Shen Wei responds, and Zhao Yunlan falls just a bit further.