p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"What can I say? Weird modern-ish LeviHan in a nightclub. The title is taken from Entanglement by Imogen Heap, because it's a perfect, gorgeous song and also because I realized after finishing this that it matches the "mood" quite well. (Part 2 of the Entanglement series)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Cross-posted from Archive of Our Own and dedicated to my dear friend/sister in spirit/co-fangirl, Arely. She's to blame for getting me into this fandom and especially LeviHan./p

The strobe lights hypnotize you. In the space between one song and the next, you realized you've been staring at them for... a long time. Minutes? Hours? You squint at your watch, but the glow-in-the-dark green only makes waving dizzy streaks across your vision.

"Time is a construct," Hanji tells you, after ingesting one too many supposedly medicinal herbs. "A fiction, created to give structure to our chaotic lives."

(You'll never admit it, but time does seem to do strange things when you're around Hanji.)

Instead you attempt to measure the time by songs, by how many times the lights rotate through their colors. When these begin bleeding into each other too, you give up, and leave your plush seat for the bar.

You order something coolly sweet, downing it in a breath. Coming here was Hanji's idea, a new place to try, and you agreed because you like when Hanji makes you try new things. But tonight the lights are too bright, the corners too dark, the bar too crowded...

You drink another sweet libation, feeling this temporal dead zone close in on you. A certain song calls to you, pulsing quietly above your head. Relieved, somehow, by this intrusion into your stasis, you meld with the sea of people on the dance floor, your body swaying with poetry to the liquid beat. You are outside yourself and yet deep within yourself, synesthesia flowing through your synapses. The songs form an ocean of sound, and your body swims through it nearly on autopilot. When your eyes catch a certain silhouette, the flash of light on glass, all your atoms snap back together.

Hanji gives a quick grin, beckoning you with a hand. You both begin to dance.

Hanji tells you about hir preferred pronouns when you ask one day, having alternated she-her/he-him in your head forever and not feeling quite right about it. Ze is understanding (because it's you, ze says, but you're the only one who has ever asked) and things fall more into place for you, with hir, because Hanji is simply a human whom you care for and who cares for you, but you really should have realized that sooner, with or without pronouns, and...

(Hanji doesn't let you call yourself stupid.)

You move together as though it's been practiced, even though it never is; it's always new. The newness this time manifests in the mere inches separating your bodies, in the brushing of your hands, in the abrupt rise in heat from Hanji's skin.

The song ends, and you become harshly aware of your breathing...

...then the next song starts, a loud-vibrating-driving track, and the bass is hard enough to stop your breath. Your heart pounds with a hammering ache in your chest, and the rainbow lights splinter on Hanji's face, those black-framed thick glasses, and your lips begin to tingle. You spin away from Hanji, lungs chasing oxygen, head spinning, vision sparkling, legs moving. Moving you away.

Out into the shockingly quiet night, across the street, onto the grass of a tiny park. Your knees give way; you collapse, gulping and gasping, hands grasping the soft cool green.

You were sure you were dying. Emotion hit you like a tidal wave, and you ran to protect yourself as much as Hanji from your breakdown, or implosion, or whatever had threatened to boil over. You wanted so fiercely but you didn't know what. You still do, although the open air is strengthening your soul just a bit.

And then your name hits you from behind, urgent, and a warm hand glances off your head, making you blink, and Hanji is there kneeling in front of you, arms lacing around your shoulders, pulling you tightly against hir, and you sink into yourself.

"How do you stay so calm?" When I don't, you think.

Hanji smiles. "Meditation helps me a lot. I'll teach you how to do it." Ze ruffles your hair (ze's the only one who can do that without injury), practically glowing with excitement. Honestly, watching paint dry sounds more appealing, but if you learn to make yourself calm, with hir help, it could be worth a try...

(By now, any chance for time spent with Hanji is very appealing to you.)

Awareness shoots back to you. Your voice bubbles up from your throat but all it is you gasping Hanji's name once as hir face grounds your vision, and ze whispers yours. The soft concern in hir eyes turns the stinging in yours to water that trickles down your cheeks from Hanji's hands on your skin, from Hanji's lips against yours, Hanji's body pressing you to the grass, Hanji, Hanji, Hanji.

You lie under hir, lungs slowly synchronizing, and the blessed air cools your burning skin to make room for the gentle warmth of Hanji's body heat. Hir lips stroke yours once more before ze eases off of you, grasping your hands and pulling you to sit, then stand, all in slow motion.

You hold Hanji's hands like they're a lifeline, wishing yours wouldn't shake so, and you stare at hir beautiful face and want to speak but can't. But a smile finds its way onto your face.

Hanji smiles back; your pulse slows further even as your breath stutters. "You're okay?"

It's a statement, disguised as a question. You nod.

"I'm taking you home." Ze squeezes your hands. Your smile warms your eyes, now. Together you go to Hanji's apartment, silent the entire way, looking up at the stars.

Hanji gives you a set of hir nightclothes, and you try not to hate the blush hearing your face when ze says how small, how cute, you look in them.

You don't have to ask to share Hanji's bed, to kiss Hanji's mouth again, to slide your hands over Hanji's torso as hirs do the same on yours. More, later (in the morning, ze suggests). Sleep is what you really want, for now.

You lie facing each other, under soft covers. Hanji wraps hir arms around you, dips hir head down to rest against your chest. "Your heartbeat is nice to listen to," ze whispers. "Tomorrow I'll let you hear mine, if you'd like."

The sigh that leaves you is so content, you can almost feel hir smile. You fall asleep with safety and warmth surrounding you, your face nestled in hir hair, each breath soothed by cinnamon Hanji-scent.