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Of course, nobody had even tried to say no to him. The dancer had looked so happy and determined at the prospect of spending the night all together in a cuddle pile on the floor that not even Seungmin had tried to argue himself out of it. The vocalist had paid for it by being squished in the middle of the human pyramid but they all knew he secretly loved it.

Chan himself had somehow ended up at the side with Minho half on top of him and half on top of Han. He lifted his head and tried to find out who that sound had come from without disturbing the sleeping dancer on top of him. 

Luckily the room was not quite dark, the curtains let through enough moonlight for Chan to see a silhouette pushed up on his arms on the other side of the mattresses. It was where the sound had come from, for sure. 

Apparently even after having his own room for some time now, his body recognized the sound of a distressed member even in sleep.

Something seemed off. Hyunjin - as he now recognized from the long dark hair - was still in the same uncomfortable position as before and Chan saw his back rise and fall from the deep breaths he was loudly taking. 

Carefully Chan slid out from under Minho, placing him down onto the warm spot where the leader had lain. “Channie?”, Minho mumbled, eyes opening a bit.

“Go back to sleep”, Chan whispered back, stroking his dongsaeng’s hair away from his face. Minho sleepily nodded and curled closer to Han before instantly dropping off again.

On quiet feet Chan walked around the other sleeping boys to kneel down by Hyunjin’s side, placing a gentle hand on the younger’s back. “Hyunjinnie? Everything alright?”

Hyunjin didn’t answer, he just looked up at Chan with wide eyes before leaning down to cough again. It sounded strangled and choked, like he was holding himself back - probably in consideration of the other sleeping members.  

“Hyung”, Hyunjin whispered then, a hint of panic in his voice, “I feel sick.”

Exactly what Chan wanted to hear in the middle of the night. But a mat-hyung’s and leader’s duty never ended. Or a parent’s …

Without even really thinking about it, Chan lifted the younger to his feet and guided him to the bathroom. In there they could talk without worrying about waking the other members and if Hyunjin would really need to throw up it was the place to be. Chan wasn’t fazed by it, sure he would have loved sleeping through the night, but this was not the first time he was awoken by a sick dongsaeng and it surely wouldn’t be the last. 

But instead of kneeling down by the toilet like Chan had expected, Hyunjin tore himself out of Chan’s grip and stumbled to the sink, bracing himself against the porcelain. For a second Chan’s heart skipped a beat, thinking that Hyunjin couldn’t even make it to the toilet but he just leaned his head over the sink and coughed softly. 

With a sigh, Chan flicked on the overhead light - mentally cursing just how bright it was - and closed the door behind himself. Then he stepped over Hyunjin and gathered Hyunjin’s hair at the base of his neck, at the same time using the back of his hand to feel his neck for a fever. Hyunjin’s skin was clammy cold, no sign of an elevated temperature. Small mercies. Once the hair was secure, he placed his other hand around Hyunjin’s waist to keep him upright. 

“Hey mate, what’s happening? How long have you felt this bad?”, Chan asked as Hyunjin nauseously bent even further over the drain. Watching the younger in the mirror, Chan saw that Hyunjin’s face was incredibly pale and there were beads of sweat on his forehead. His eyes were bloodshot and teary. There was no denying he was sick.

The leader tried to think back if he had noticed something off with Hyunjin, if something had been out of the ordinary. But Hyunjin had acted normal, he had been loud when in the mood and silent when needed, he had been energetic during filming and had even managed to get into so many shenanigans together with Changbin that Minho had ordered both of them to do the dishes and dry them on top of it. There was nothing that would have indicated Hyunjin being this queasy only hours later.

And indeed: “I just woke up like this.”

Hyunjin’s voice sounded rough and there were tears running down from the corners of his eyes now. He coughed again but it was clear he was still holding back and instead kept swallowing. 

“If your body needs to be sick, just get it up”, Chan encouraged, patting Hyunjin’s hip, “you might feel better if you throw up.”

Hyunjin jerked forward with an aborted heave and coughed again. It was clear he did not want to throw up. He shuddered.

“Hyung, I’m so tired”, he whispered, “I don’t want to be sick.”

“I know, kiddo”, Chan replied. He felt bad for Hyunjin, he really did. He knew that waking up in the middle of the night feeling like you’re about to puke out your guts was not the greatest experience. His dongsaeng seemed so tired.

Hyunjin shuddered again and fell back against his leader, unable to hold himself up over the sink any longer. Chan concernedly wrapped his arms around the younger’s chests, careful to not put any pressure on his stomach. “Let’s sit down by the toilet, okay? Just in case.”

It was clear that Hyunjin did not want that but Chan knew there was no way he could let him just lie back down in the living room. The chalky appearance, the way he kept swallowing or coughing to fight against gags and the obvious weakness were all signs that at one point Hyunjin would be sick if he wanted to or not. Chan would rather have him over a toilet when that happened.

With an arm around his waist again, Chan let Hyunjin to sit down by the toilet and then looked around for a towel that he could sit on. There was no use in catching an infection from sitting on the cold floor on top of everything. When he turned around from grabbing the towel Jeongin had hazardously left hanging over the open shower door - if he wanted it to not get used he could have put it away with the other towels on the heater like everybody else seemed to have been capable of doing - he found Hyunjin looking even more pitiful than earlier. His knees were pulled to his chest and he was leaning sideways against the toilet, his head resting on the seat. 

It was highly unhygienic but Chan couldn’t fault him - it was obvious how exhausted he was and holding his head up was not a priority. 

“Come on, sit on the towel. You’ll be more comfortable.” Hyunjin looked at him for the first time, eyes glassy and swimming with tears.

“I threw up, hyung.”

For a moment Chan was confused but then he saw the tiny spot of vomit on Hyunjin’s sleep shirt. Hyunjin had always been quiet when he threw up, often gagging silently, so Chan was not surprised he hadn’t heard. It broke his heart seeing his dongsaeng so sick and exhausted. He wished he had been there but there was nothing he could do about it now.

“Oh, love”, Chan whispered and rushed over to him, abandoning the towel beside them to take some toilet paper to wipe the sick away. It wasn’t much, barely even a mouthful, but it had started. 

Once the shirt was sufficiently cleaned for the moment, Chan gathered Hyunjin in his arms and Hyunjin inhaled sharply at the hug. He buried his face in Chan’s shoulder and his body jerked with his sobs, quaking but safe in his leader’s embrace. 

With a sigh the leader pressed a kiss on the top of his head and let his hand wander up and down his dongsaeng’s back, hoping to calm him down before his cries made him sick. But Hyunjin had barely been crying for a minute when his body moved with a queasy-sounding hiccough. 

Not very keen on getting thrown up upon if it could be avoided, Chan gently pushed Hyunjin away from him. Well, he tried to but Hyunjin was now fisting the back of Chan’s shirt, refusing to let go.

“Come on, Jinnie”, Chan whispered, “let’s get you over the toilet, hm? Just in case. Your body sounds really sick.”

Patting him on the back again, Chan used a bit more gentle force to remove the sick boy from his lap and positioned him over the toilet. Hyunjin groaned but let Chan move him. He was probably too exhausted to fight it. So he just hung his head over the water, leaning it against his hand, elbow propped up on the seat. Chan gathered his hair again and tugged at Huynjin’s other wrist, trying to free the hair tie that was trapped by the arm pressed against his stomach. Once freed, he tied back Hyunjin’s hair in a messy ponytail, not pretty but enough to keep his hair out of danger.

Just in time, it seemed. 

Hyunjin jolted forward, a burp escaping him. Still, he refused to throw up, coughing and swallowing as if his life depended on it.

“Baby, your body needs to get rid of what is making you feel so sick. The sooner you get it all up, the sooner you can go back to sleep.” 

Apparently that was the right thing to say. Or maybe Hyunjin just couldn’t hold it back anymore. Whatever it was, the next burp brought up a small spray of thick vomit splattering against porcelain and water. “There you go. I’ve got you.”

Now that the floodgates were opened, Hyunjin couldn’t seem to stop. He coughed again, this time ending up gagging and throwing up more. Wave after wave of sick came up, some of it even through his nose.

Chan could feel the way Hyunjin’s whole body shuddered as he fought for breath, sour-smelling bile dripping down his lips into the rapidly filling bowl. The way he was holding Hyunjin in his arms meant that Chan had a first row experience of seeing and smelling what his dongsaeng was so desperately throwing up. He didn’t think he would ever look at chap chae the same ever again. 

Hyunjin gasped suddenly and the next second he was coughing harshly. Seeing that he wasn’t bringing anything up anymore, Chan quickly realized that he wasn’t done but rather choking on the vomit in his throat. Immediately the leader started slapping his back, trying to help him dislodge whatever was stuck. 

It took a few seconds to work but then Hyunjin leaned into the toilet even further, a huge wave of sick spewing from his lips in one go. Then, without warning, he went limp.

Chan felt a cold flash of fear, thinking the younger had passed out but as he pulled Hyunjin back into his lap it became clear he hadn’t fainted, just had lost the last of his strength to hold himself upright. 

“Jinnie”, Chan mumbled sadly, stroking his dongsaeng’s cheek tenderly. Hyunjin was still gasping for air but it seemed just a result of the exertion and he seemed content enough to rest against his leader.

Chan reached up to flush the toilet, then took a wad of toilet paper to wipe some leftover bile from Hyunjin’s lip and cheek. With another few pieces he dabbed at Hyunjin’s eyes, which were still leaking tears down pale cheeks.

“You with me?”

Hyunjin nodded weakly and Chan helped him sit up against his shoulder. He held out some pieces of toilet paper to the younger and instructed: “Blow.”

Tiredly Hyunjin took the toilet paper from the older and blew his nose loudly, a bit of sick coming out along with snot from crying so hard. With a disgusted look Hyunjin threw it into the toilet then tiredly blinked up at Chan.

“Sleep?”, he asked hopefully.

Chan laughed softly at the sleepy eyes and the pout his dongsaeng was sporting, causing a bit of offense to melt into Hyunjin’s expression. “Sorry”, he whispered and kissed Hyunjin’s forehead. “You’re really tired, huh?”

Huynjin nodded against Chan’s shoulder and yawned. 

“Do you still feel sick?”

A shrug.

“Do you want meds?”

A shake.

“Brush your teeth?”

Another shake.

“Just sleep, huh?”

A nod.

“Okay, I got it”, Chan mumbled, caressing Hyunjin’s hair, “let’s get …”

Well, they couldn’t go back to the mattress pile on the living room floor. Even if Hyunjin didn’t need to be sick again during the night - which seemed rather unlikely, considering he was still extremely pale and sick looking - there was the risk of contagion. One pukey dongsaeng was doable. Seven? No, thank you very much.

“Lay down here, okay? Hyung will be back”, Chan promised and helped the half-asleep dancer lie down on the towel.

🧭

Manager Choi was very unhappy to be awoken in the middle of the night. It wasn’t like he was not used to it, considering which group he was babysitting, but finding Bang Chan at his bedside again was not the greatest thing to wake up to.

“Channie?”, he asked sleepily.

“Sorry to wake you, hyung”, the leader whispered, “I need a favor.”

“What have the kids done this time?”, Manager Choi asked, stifling a yawn into his arm. He had been lucky, really. In a switched position the managers for once had to play kawi bawi bo for rooms, considering that Yongbok had wanted to sleep with all the members in the living room which had been planned for the managers. He had won a single room and had gone to bed hoping he would get to sleep through the night. Yet, here Bang Chan was.

“Hyunjinnie is throwing up”, Chan explained, which suddenly had the manager awake and sitting upright in bed. 

“What do you need? Meds? Doctor? Hospital?”, he asked, already mentally mapping out the route to the next emergency room.

“Relax, I just wanted to ask you to switch sleeping arrangements with Jinnie and me.”

That was how the head manager of Stray Kids found himself curled up on a small mattress with six-eighths of Stray Kids while Bang Chan carried a sleeping Hyunjin into his single room.

It seemed like he had just fallen asleep when he was awoken by a loud and terrified screech in his ear at barely seven thirty. He shot upright only to nearly collide with a wide-eyed Lee Know who had just found out upon waking that he had not, in fact, been cuddling his leader but his manager.

At least Han and Felix burst out giggling the moment they saw the horror in their hyung’s face and teased him relentlessly over it.

Wei Wuxian was doing the thing with his voice where he tries not to sound over eager. It never worked very well. The man wore his emotions like he wore that bright, red hair-ribbon of his. His face was glowing with curiosity and trepidation, both. Nothing quite like hope, but maybe desire.

“And Jin Guangshan has agreed that you should attend.”

The desire dashed into dejection.

“Fuck.”

Nie Huaisang sighed, whipping open his fan and idly waving it. A restless gesture, rather than a cooling one. “Indeed.”

Silence settled between them for a moment. Wei Wuxian’s brow furrowed in the way it did when he was considering a deceptively simple solution to a particularly complex problem. He cocked his head to one side and asked, with no small amount of anxiety slowing his words, “You don’t think Lan Zhan--”

But Nie Huaisang cut him off with a snap of his fan. “No,” he said with surprising weight and confidence for all that he has spent the entire conversation up until this moment prevaricating and professing his general ignorance.

Wei Wuxian, though, seemed comforted by this, taking him at his word and nodding.

It was strange, this interaction. Nie Huaisang, or at least Wen Qing’s impression of him during the lectures at the Cloud Recesses, was a flighty and distractible disciple. He was lazy in his classwork, even lazier in his martial arts. And, though he painted beautiful fans, he used them too often to avoid difficult conversations at all cost.

The man before her now, in this moment and this moment alone, looked like a competent advisor to the venerable Chifeng-zun.

“Lan Wangji is naïve and idealistic,” said Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian grinned at that.

“Aren’t we all, Nie-xiong.” He raised his eyebrows like it was a joke.

After all they’d all been through, Wen Qing supposed it only could be a joke, but it was still one she wasn’t exactly in on.

“Ah, it’s true,” Nie Huaisang agreed, opening his fan with a puerile smile and becoming, for all appearances, the featherbrained boy of their youth once more. “We are, we are.”

Wen Qing schooled her face into something like understanding as she tried to fit together the pieces of conversation that the two weren’t having. So far she’d gathered that the invitation was a trap, but she could have told them that from the beginning. There was something else hiding in the words that they weren't saying, but Wen Qing didn’t have enough of anything to figure out what it was. Which was frustrating.

It was no secret that Wei Wuxian was brilliant. Fourth-ranked in their generation or not, the man was infamous for his… unique solutions to difficult problems. She knew intimately how unique those solutions could be. But Wen Qing had never seen that ingenuity extend to politics. Or people in any kind of broader sense.

He had been, however, the head disciple of Yunmeng Jiang. A position that required both political acumen and a sense for leadership. Especially if he was awarded the position over the sect heir, regardless of cultivation skill.

It was an uncomfortable realization that she, just like everybody else in the cultivation world, had underestimated him. She thought she would have known better by now.

It was similarly uncomfortable to realize just how much she had underestimated the Nie sect heir, too. Because, even now, she had no idea how intelligent and observant he was. And she had the distinct impression that her ignorance -- both of Nie Huaisang’s cleverness and of the underlying thread of this conversation -- was by design.

Nie Huaisang flapped his fan back-and-forth and stared at it like nothing more interesting than that painted scene was happening around him. “He’s still writing your invitation as we speak.”

Wen Qing couldn’t help her brow from furrowing at that. “Then how are you here so fast, Nie-er-gongzi?” she asked, barely keeping her tone genial, even as frustration mounted in her chest.

“Oh, Qing-jie,” said Wei Wuxian with a grin that she knew boded mischief. “Did you know that just southwest of here there is a rather large and impressive freshwater lake?”

Wen Qing didn’t shake her head. She didn’t groan. She didn’t grab him by the shoulders and yell, “How is that relevant?!” She had greater composure than that. If she could stand at attention in front of Wen Ruohan while he openly threatened her brother, she could contain her reaction to a simple quirk of her eyebrow.

“It’s true!” said Nie Huaisang, snapping his fan closed and gesturing with it. “It’s on top of a plateau and in the winter there are hundreds of species of birds--”

She cuts him off. “So, you weren’t in the room when this decision was made, then.”

“Ah, no, Wen-guniang,” he said, ducking his head as if in apology. Then, allowing a glimpse of his cleverness to show in his eyes he asked, “But have I told you yet of my fondness for birds? Of many kinds?”

Spies, she understood. He had a network of spies that could reach even into the private halls of Lanling. She understood, too, that she was being given this information with trust. That it was only a hint of what the Nie heir was capable of and that Wei Wuxian’s trust in her was transitive.

She smiled. “I’m sure I don’t need the details, Nie-er-gongzi.”

“Good, good.” He smiled back, sharp but only for a flash before it was genial and light and then hidden behind his open fan once more. “I’d hate to bore you.”

Wen Qing’s heart hammered in her chest for a moment, a fear response she knew well how to mask. She wondered what exactly her body had interpreted as a threat.

“So, what are you saying, Huaisang?” Wei Wuxian asked, not bothering to hide his agitation, but also skillfully directing Nie Huaisang’s attention back to himself and giving Wen Qing the room she needed to breathe.

“I’m saying I’ll go with you,” Nie Huaisang said, simply. Like anything about that statement was simple.

“With me?” Wei Wuxian scoffed, incredulous. “You want to walk into Lanling and declare Qinghe Nie’s support of Yiling Laozu?”

But Nie Huaisang just nodded and said, “I do.”

“Huaisang!”

“And,” he continued, plowing through Wei Wuxian’s disbelief like oxen through rice fields, “I want to shelter the Wen Remnants in Qinghe.”

Wen Qing felt her eyes bulging out of their sockets, but Wei Wuxian just laughed and waved a hand dismissively.

“I want to marry Lan Zhan and bear him children,” he said in an uncharacteristically honest admission, flippant though it was. “Not all things are possible, Nie-xiong.”

Nie Huaisang looked nothing short of delighted at his friend’s candor but, undeterred, said, “Bearing his children may be outside even your scope, but offering you the protection of Qinghe Nie is not outside of mine.”

Wen Qing considered his words carefully. Considered all of the things she had learned about him as a person in this short conversation.

“At what cost?” she asked.

“What cost?” he responded, playing the fool as easily as breathing.

Even now, even knowing all that she did, she could almost believe it again.

Luckily, Wei Wuxian was not similarly affected.

“Huaisang,” he said, chastising his friend like he might a misbehaving shidi. “We both know that you wouldn’t even be hinting at something like this without your da-ge’s permission. No matter how much porn you smuggled into the Cloud Recesses, you don’t actually have a death wish. Nie Mingjue would allow you many things, but this?”

Ignoring the comment about porn -- another shared joke Wen Qing wasn’t privy to -- she agreed. She remembered the stories her clansmen and sect members had told about Chifeng-zun during the war. She remembered her cousin’s severed head displayed proudly at the gate of the Unclean Realm. “He hates Qishan Wen more than anybody.”

Nie Huaisang, to his credit, didn’t deny it. He hesitated for a moment but conceded with a nod and a tap of his closed fan, “He does. But!” The fan opens again, “But, he’s not entirely unreasonable.”

Wen Qing could feel Wei Wuxian rolling his eyes next to her, even if she couldn't see it.

“What’s the cost, Huaisang?” he asked, impatience hard-edged in his voice.

Nie Huaisang tapped his fan on the table a few more times. Another restless gesture, perhaps, as he collected his words into an order he thought might best be presented to his friend.

In hindsight, Wen Qing thinks it very strange that this was the moment Nie Huaisang found most uncertain. Most delicate. But then, maybe this pause, this careful consideration and apparent reluctance, was all an act, too.

In the end, whether it was calculated or not never really mattered.

Nie Huaisang fixed Wei Wuxian with soft eyes and a determined frown, leaned forward enough to brace an elbow on the table, and said,