hey so - a fic inspired by xz's new song's cover art, set in one of those aus where your heart is a physical, detachable thing that you can take out of your chest and give to someone you trust for safekeeping

obviously that isn't something you do lightly - the heart is a fragile thing, and easily broken or bruised or stained or corrupted - a lot of people wait till marriage to swap hearts with their significant other, and xz guards his closely

the problem is - for reasons completely beyond him, wyb's heart keeps showing up with xz. he'll wake up in his hotel room and it'll be sitting on the bedside table, glowing a little, quietly beating next to the glass of water he poured out for himself the previous night

or they'll be goofing off during hair and makeup and wyb will get called away by one of his handlers or a director or a stylist and xz will look up from his phone five minutes later to see that wyb's heart is still just chilling on xz's vanity

while his makeup artist keeps applying foundation to his face, like she hasn't noticed the HEART just LYING OUT IN THE OPEN FOR EVERYONE TO SEE

it's not xz's fault! it's not like he's trying to STEAL WYB'S HEART, that's a serious crime!! and for anyone else it would probably be super mortifying but wyb just takes it all in stride, totally unabashed, jokes about how his heart seems to like xz better than its actual owner

xz's slowly going out of his mind??? wyb needs to take care of and responsibility for his heart??????

anyway this is basically just a canon rehash but with a physical manifestation of wyb's gigantic crush, as if it wasn't already astronomical enough to be seen from space

probably wyb is initially a LITTLE mortified about his heart just showing up with xz all the time, esp when they've only really known each other for like two weeks, so he downplays it like it's not a big deal (it is a big deal) and pretends it's just some weird quirk of biology

which xz takes at face value because the alternative explanation is too much to contemplate

but then at some point yb or xl or wzc has had ENOUGH and is like this is obviously not normal, he LIKES YOU!! and then xz has to actually examine himself and his feelings

after which he comes to the conclusion that he also likes wyb but doesn't know if he can be unguarded in the same way - he can't give his literal heart away so easily - he's not as cavalier about this stuff as wyb! he wishes he could be less cautious but he just isn't that person

the resolution is probably a big conversation about that, xz feeling guilty that he can't give wyb the same thing wyb's giving him, wyb vehemently saying that he doesn't need the equivalent exchange right now as long as xz accepts wyb's heart and takes good care of it, which is a

demonstration in and of itself of xz's love, commensurate to the giving

bc wyb has known xz for long enough now that he knows it's hard for him!! love at first sight/love grows over time he is willing to wait so long as xz stops trying to convince him that it's unfair to him

love is meeting people where they are /scene