listen these boys have me in a vice grip ok, ive spat out like 5 fic for them in a week. this has literally never happened to me before lmao
anyway i signed up for an ao3 account and i should be done with that soon so i’ll stop spamming the tag with my fics. BUT UNTIL THEN, you’re stuck with me >:D
this runs with the “LG is from an alternate timeline” theory!
when cxs first meets back up with LG and doesn’t think he’s alive, he ugly cries. When he is reminiscing abt lg when he thinks he’s dead, he ugly cries. I thought hey, lg isn’t very emotional. We really only see him get riled up as it pertains to cxs. What would it take for him to cry? And this is the product of that train of thought xD I’m sorry. Also whatever route s2 ends up taking, this will inevitably no longer jive with canon but hey for now it works!
Every timeline, no matter how hard he tried, always resulted in this. Always, always, always. He should have stayed dead when possessed Qiao Ling stabbed him. It would have been better than reliving this over and over and over again. The blood on his hands; the way Cheng Xiaoshi looked at him; the touch of his hand to Lu Guang’s cheek; the way the lie “it’s going to be okay” was coughed out of his mouth; everything; all of it.
He awakes with a start. Having nightmares; having THAT nightmare, isn’t unusual. But awaking to Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice calling out to him concernedly is.
“Lu Guang?” he whispers. “You were murmuring in your sleep,” he continues. Lu Guang takes a minute to regain his composure. He’s sweating and his heart is racing a mile a minute.
“Did I wake you? Sorry,” he stammers out, his voice unsteady, and that’s when he notices his eyes are wet. Shit, was I crying too?
“It’s cool.” Back to silence. Lu Guang thinks Cheng Xiaoshi must’ve fallen back asleep. He should try to do the same, but he knows better. Knows he won’t be falling asleep anytime soon, if at all.
“Lu Guang?” he murmurs.
“Yes?”
“You were…” he begins, but then pauses, like he doesn’t want to say it. A breath in. Then: “You were calling out for me in your sleep.” Lu Guang feels heat rise to his face. Embarrassing. But also, he’s mad at himself that Cheng Xiaoshi must have heard him being so pathetic, so vulnerable.
Normally he’d deny it. Laugh it off. Call Cheng Xiaoshi an egotistical idiot for thinking Lu Guang would be calling out his name in his sleep, of all people. But. But the memory of blood is so fresh in his mind, of Cheng Xiaoshi’s lifeless body, everything, it’s all…Shit, he’s crying again.
It must not be as quiet as he thinks, either, because Cheng Xiaoshi exclaims, “Lu Guang!” Hold it in, Lu Guang commands himself. He hears the mattress below him shift as Cheng Xiaoshi gets out of bed.
“Lu Guang, get down here,” he commands, and who is Lu Guang to say no? He gets up and climbs down the ladder. Upon seeing Cheng Xiaoshi standing there, Cheng Xiaoshi who had been dead in his dreams moments before, who had been dead in another reality before, he breaks down, crumbling to the floor. Ugly, loud sobs. He thinks Cheng Xiaoshi looks surprised, but it’s hard to tell through the tears. He feels, rather than sees, the warm embrace of his companion, and oh, that makes it worse.
“Hey, hey! I’m right here, it’s okay, everything’s okay,” he soothes, stroking Lu Guang’s back. There’s something ironic about being held and comforted like this by Cheng Xiaoshi, but he’s in no state to make a snarky comment on it. Instead, he hugs back tighter, digging his fingers into the fabric of Cheng Xiaoshi’s shirt. It’s too tight, it must hurt, he should apologize, but the only sounds that can come out of his mouth are sobs; sobs that make him shake and struggle for air.
“Shh, shh. It’s okay,” Cheng Xiaoshi repeats, and how wrong he is. Sure, it’s okay now, but it won’t be okay, at some point, not if he can’t change things, not if…more tears.
Eventually he quiets down, and reluctantly pulls away. He sniffles and wipes his nose with his sleeve.
“Better?” Cheng Xiaoshi asks, his eyes full of concern, and something else Lu Guang can’t put a finger to. No, he thinks, but he doesn’t say that. He weakly nods.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” No, he thinks again, but he’s tired, and sad, and devastated, and exhausted, and…
“You died,��� he splutters out. Tears threaten to spill out again. “You died, and died again,” and now he’s lying— the dream was only one loop, not the reality he’s lived over and over, but he’s already talking, “and again, and I couldn’t save you. I tried, I tried, I tried, and I failed every time, and—”
“Oh, Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi breathes out, worry and concern lacing every syllable.
“I just wanted to save you, that’s all I was trying to do,” he manages to get out. He looks up to Cheng Xiaoshi who is looking back at him, feeling helpless that he can’t make things better. Lu Guang breathes in. “Why can’t I save you?” he whispers, and shit, he’d screwed up, he should have said “Why couldn’t I save you?” This was supposed to be describing a dream, not the reality he’d lived over and over again, but it just slipped out. If Cheng Xiaoshi noticed, he doesn’t show it. He says nothing, but he grabs his hand.
“Feel this?” he asks, and he does. He feels the warmth of Cheng Xiaoshi’s hand, of the hand he’s clapped and high-fived so many times before. The hand that’s punched him in anger, that’s gripped onto his shoulder as he cried. He feels the crevices in the skin, the nooks and crannies, the roughness that he’s offered skin cream to help with in the past. He feels his pulse thrumming through his wrist. Cheng Xiaoshi interlaces their fingers. “It’s me. I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.” He’s wrong. Lu Guang can’t bring himself to look at him. “Hey. I mean it,” Cheng Xiaoshi says firmly, and releases his hand, which makes Lu Guang immediately miss the warmth. He brings his hand up to Lu Guang’s face slowly, and gently wipes away his tears. This makes Lu Guang look at him, and oh, oh, he loves him, he loves him and he’s going to die and there’s nothing he can do—
“I’m here. It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere,” he repeats. He’s a liar. He will go somewhere, but Lu Guang can’t tell him that. So he only nods, feebly. Cheng Xiaoshi moves to hug him once more, and Lu Guang melts into it. This will have to be enough, for now.
Later, Lu Guang will have to go back to work. Back to work to figure out how to save Cheng Xiaoshi, how to protect moments like these, protect him.
But for now he hugs Cheng Xiaoshi back, maybe a little too tightly, and lets himself calm down. The boy is alive, and safe, and here, with him. For now, in this moment, everything is okay.
For now.
32 notes
·
View notes