"Better you than a leaky ceiling," Mingjue tells him. "And I'd rather you here than out—"

And then he snaps his jaw shut as it hits him all over again. Xichen, this Xichen, watched him die. If he were in Xichen's place, watching him die instead—as strange of an idea as that was, considering he'd only ever planned on being the one who died—the hell he would be sitting here, barely touching.

"Hey," he says, and that's all the warning he gives before he tries to haul one soggy, miserably-looking Xichen straight into a bear-hug.