Chapter Text
The snow doesn’t stick, and Lan Xichen can’t help but feel a little disappointed when he can still see the last, scraggly blades of browning grass peeking out at him in the morning. It’d been a while since he’d experienced the first snow, and he was looking forward to it. But, alas, today was not the day.
He makes it to his bedroom door before the events of last night catch up with him, and his grip on the handle tightens as he stands there, frozen.
It’d really happened, hadn’t it? It feels like a dream, now, the rush of nervous adrenaline he’d felt at the simple words of hey, can we talk? The roiling anticipation in his gut when he saw Khalil, sat next to him, talked to him about Jiang Cheng, what had happened, their opinions on love and the destruction it had left. The guilty hope that he had felt rising in his chest like a fledgling phoenix from the ashes, from the terrible and blessed utterance of I broke up with him paired with the revelation that, after all of these years, Jiang Cheng had kept his sweater .
He feels like the room is spinning a little, as he takes a deep breath and opens the door to let the world back in. He needs to...he needs to think about this, despite how much his fingers itch to brush along sharp cheekbones and his heart yearns to respond to the siren song of he’s single . It would be foolhardy and...disrespectful, he thinks, and, well. He thinks in this case he should wait for Jiang Cheng to reach out, if he ever does, and prepare himself for the possibility that Khalil was wrong.
That Lan Xichen isn’t the right man, either.
He sees Lan Wangji in the kitchen, as he always does in the morning, and gets handed his usual cup of jasmine tea.
“Are you ok, ge?” his brother asks softly, “You look...troubled.”
Lan Xichen smiles as he takes a sip from his tea. Troubled probably doesn’t even begin to describe it.
“Khalil…” he starts, and watches as Lan Wangji’s eyes flick up to his, “reached out to me yesterday. And we...talked.”
His brother is silent as he waits, leaning against the counter. Lan Xichen turns his eyes back down to his cup; this is still a little new for him, talking about things that were bothering him... in person . He takes a breath.
“He told me that he broke up with Jiang Cheng. Amongst some...other things.”
The surprise is evident in the sound of Lan Wangji sipping just a little faster, and Lan Xichen continues on.
“And now, I guess...I’m just processing that.” He put his cup down, wrapping his hands around the warm body of it as he continues to stare into the lightly tinted liquid. “I think I’m going to wait for Wanyin to reach out to me, though.” He shakes his head slightly, sighing. “I don’t think it’s my place to...do anything. Right now.”
He looks up at his brother, then, and there’s a slight hint of confusion in his eyes.
“Is...there anything to do?” Lan Wangji asks, and it’s Lan Xichen’s turn to be confused. “I thought you were still...planning on going back to California?”
Lan Xichen’s eyebrows raise, as he suddenly realizes that despite all of his efforts to talk to people about things, he’d forgotten to tell his brother about his recent decision to stay. Ah, well, baby steps and all.
He smiles hesitantly, and Lan Wangji tilts his head slightly at him.
“I’m planning to stay, didi. Here. In Toronto.”
A moment passes, and then his brother smiles at him, full and unguarded and equivalent to him whooping and cheering with all of his might. Lan Xichen can’t help but return it, and a surprised oof gets pushed out of him when he suddenly finds his arms wrapped around his brother’s back.
“I’m so happy, ge,” he says, and though his tone is still in that soft, unflinching manner of his, Lan Xichen can feel the pure exuberance in how tightly he’s being held. He might actually need to ask his brother to ease up on him a little, it’s getting a little difficult to breathe properly.
Lan Xichen laughs, patting Lan Wangji’s back, and he’s transported back to a time when they were younger, and his brother used to launch himself at him much more frequently (because he’d just seen a frightening bug, or was too shy to talk to the neighbourhood kids, or simply because he’d just seen a bunny so cute that he didn’t know how to comprehend it).
He revels in the embrace for another moment, before Lan Wangji is slowly unwrapping himself and stepping away from him.
“In that case, I think it probably is for the best that you...wait.” His brother says, and Lan Xichen nods.
“Wei Wuxian isn’t going to be...particularly happy about this, is he?” he asks, and he winces a bit, thinking about how hard he’s going to have to work to mend that relationship.
Lan Wangji hums, nodding slightly. “He likes Khalil,” he replies, then pauses. “But he loves Jiang Wanyin. As long as he’s happy, he’ll come around.”
As long as he’s happy, with or without me , Lan Xichen thinks to himself, but he lifts the corners of his mouth up into a small smile. He knows his brother’s words are meant to be encouraging, but he’s still so unsure of whether he can provide that happiness, himself.
The conversation ends when Lan Wangji turns away to head into his room (presumably to work on his paper), but five minutes later Lan Xichen gets a call from his uncle. Lan Qiren scolds him for making him learn the news of him staying from Lan Wangji (the gossip , he was going to call him later!), but by the end of it Lan Xichen is grinning hard from the joy that he can hear in his uncle’s voice.
When Monday comes around he schedules a quick meeting with Phoebe in the afternoon, and he tells her about his decision to stay. She’s ecstatic about it, and Lan Xichen suddenly finds himself on the receiving end of the most exuberant handshake he’s ever been a part of. His hand is still aching a little as they start to talk a little about the logistics of his transfer (he’ll have to return to his apartment in San Francisco at some point to pack up and move. And...compost his likely dead succulents). By the end of it, the ‘quick’ meeting turns into an hour long one, and Lan Xichen has promised to attend a team outing after work on Thursday to ‘officially welcome’ him to the team (despite him having already been here for several months).
But it’s nice, even if the attention is just a little embarrassing.
When their weekly brunch comes, Lan Xichen tells Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao, and is promptly wrestled into a headlock, laughing as he clutches at Nie Mingjue’s forearms. The mood is decidedly more somber when he tells them about Khalil, and Jiang Cheng, and his decision to wait for the man to make a move. They don’t really tell him anything he doesn’t already know (he needs to be patient, Jiang Cheng should be the one to decide where to go next, if he wants to go anywhere at all), but it’s still comforting when Nie Mingjue puts another waffle on to his plate and Jin Guanyao absolutely douses it in syrup for him.
The days pass, the holidays racing closer, and he’s thankful for the hustle and bustle of it to keep his mind off of thinking about Jiang Cheng all of the time. It’s actually...rather heartwarming, getting to actually decorate the house with tinsel and ornaments and Christmas cards that his uncle had kept over the years instead of getting off a plane and arriving at a house already wrapped in the sparkly baubles. He’d been a little worried, actually, that he’d be weighed down by his guilt and his ruminations and the very last text he’d sent to Jiang Cheng ( I’m almost at Yorkdale, K I’m by the steps ) when he’d taken his two weeks off of work. But he’s finding that it’s...easier, having his brother there to pull him out of it with a cup of tea or suggestion for a walk when he senses that Lan Xichen may be drifting too far, or having his uncle fuss about his coat not being thick enough for the winters here (he’d obviously been in California for much too long), or having his friends around to remind him that there was more than one reason as to why he’d decided to stay.
Before he knows it, he’s ringing in the new year with Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao in Nathan Phillips Square, wearing a ridiculous pair of glittering, oversized glasses and a hot pink top hat that someone had stuffed on to his head, counting down the numbers and grinning hard when they get to zero and he gets a kiss on each cheek from his friends. He plants an exaggerated kiss on to Nie Mingjue’s nose and blows a raspberry on Jin Guangyao’s forehead (to his friend’s absolute horror and amusement) in return, and it’s as he’s turning that he thinks he spots a familiar red ribbon attached to a man who has his arm slung around an even more familiar leather jacket.
His brother had mentioned that he would be coming to Nathan Phillips Square with Wei Wuxian tonight too, but before Lan Xichen can really react they disappear, and all he’s left with is a frozen smile on his lips and an empty tugging at his heart.
He shakes his head when Nie Mingjue asks him if something is wrong, but his eyes keep sliding back over to where he’d seen Jiang Cheng slipping into the crowd, as if he’s trying to catch another glimpse of the man.
It’s when they’re leaving the bustling square, with drunk laughter and cars honking in celebration around them, that it starts to snow. Lan Xichen hopes that this time, it’ll stay.
It continues to snow throughout the night, and when Lan Xichen wakes up the next morning, he looks out the window to see that the outside world has been transformed in his sleep. It always takes his breath away, the amount of change a little crystallized water can enact. The soft blanketing white feels like a clean slate, or a fresh start. Some opportunity to start again, even in the dead of winter, when nature dictates that everything wither away or retreat to hibernate until spring comes by to breathe life back into the earth.
It’s poetic, in a way. Some metaphor about…how even in hardship there is always opportunity for beauty and renewal. He cringes slightly at the awkward ‘deepness’ of his thoughts. He doesn’t quite know how to do this; his brother is the Literature major after all.
He ponders this as he goes downstairs because, well, if he doesn’t he’ll be thinking about gold-accented glasses and park benches and the echoing phrase of he’s single (as he’s had a habit of doing for the past month). When he gets to the kitchen, Lan Wangji greets him with a freshly brewed cup of tea.
“Didi,” he says as he accepts the drink, blowing the steam gently off the surface. “What do you think of the new snow? How would you describe it?”
His brother takes a sip from his cup.
“It’s cold.”
Lan Xichen snorts inelegantly at the unexpected answer. He forgets about his younger brother’s dry sense of humour, sometimes.
They spend the rest of their Saturday morning lazily going about their usual routines, which unfortunately means that Lan Xichen is left with a lot of time to think, and there are only so many thoughts about snow that a person can reasonably have.
He doesn’t…he doesn’t really know what he should do, now. It’s been about a month since he’s had that talk with Khalil, and each day is a test in patience and anticipation whenever he looks at his phone. He knows what he wants to do, which is to rush out immediately and knock on Jiang Cheng’s door, but he'd already made his decision to wait . Maybe he could take a page out of Pride and Prejudice and try to find some field to walk across towards the love of his life. Take Jiang Cheng into his arms in the morning mist and tell him how he’d bewitched him, body and soul, and that he loved, he loved, he loved him. And then he would lean forward, and finally ki –
He’s startled out of his thoughts when his phone buzzes in his pocket, and he looks down to find that he’s been crushing an apple in his hand. It’s more than a little bruised now, and there are faint trickles of juice trailing down his wrist. He releases the fruit and quickly goes to the sink to wash off the stickiness between his fingers, silently apologizing to the pulpy mess that he’s going to have to try to eat later. Waste not, and all that.
When he takes his phone out of his pocket to check the message, he almost wishes that he was still holding the apple, so he’d at least have some outlet for the surge of weird energy that goes through him.
Jiang Wanyin 2:12 PM
Are you free next week?
Jiang Wanyin 2:13 PM
Sorry, I need a little more time.
He stares at the messages, crashing firmly back into reality, and his guilt. What is he doing, fantasizing about some storybook make-up scene, when he’s caused a deterioration of a good relationship, and more than likely thrown Jiang Cheng into a fair amount of emotional turmoil? As much as he’s agonized over all of this, Jiang Cheng is the one who was also in a committed relationship at the time. Lan Xichen only has to consider himself, Jiang Cheng had another .
He takes a breath, and texts him back.
Lan Xichen 2:28 PM
Yes. I think I need some more time too.
And he does, to brace himself, figure out what he actually wants from Jiang Cheng, and what he’s willing to give in return (which, at the moment, is pretty much anything). Plus, Khalil had asked him to hold off for a bit before he went running to Jiang Cheng’s side, and a month was nothing in the grand scheme of things.
After all, he’s already waited for five years, even if he didn’t quite realize it until relatively recently. What’s another seven days?
Jiang Wanyin 2:55 PM
Thanks.
He doesn’t really know what Jiang Cheng is thanking him for, but he can see it as the end of a conversation it is. He locks his phone, slips it back into his pocket, and goes to fetch a cutting board and knife to slice up a rather sad looking apple.
Despite his efforts not to, he counts down the days until he sees Jiang Cheng.
On Monday, he goes out for ramen with his team to celebrate the new year. He’s been making an effort to bond with his new (permanent!) coworkers outside of the workplace, and it’s been...really nice, so far. He thinks he might even sign up for the upcoming table tennis tournament to play pairs with Phoebe, who claims that she’s as bad as he is but it’ll be fun . He orders shio ramen, extra egg and beansprouts, and decides that perhaps he should start to build up his spice tolerance again. It’s supposed to be mild spice, but it burns through his tongue, and as his eyes tear up he laughs good naturedly when his coworkers poke a little fun at his nonexistent capsaicin capacity and ply him with cool water. He has a lot of work to do.
When he gets home that night, he tells Lan Wangji that he’s finally planning on moving out (since the hustle and bustle of the holidays are finally calming down). His brother pouts a little at him in the smallest downturn of his lips, but Lan Xichen can see the excitement in his golden eyes at the prospect of getting to live with Wei Wuxian again. Five minutes after he tells his brother he gets a call from his uncle (he’d been patiently anticipating it, this time), and politely turns down his offer of helping him find a place. He thinks his idea of an ideal home is a little different from his uncle’s, as similar as they are. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle having to commute at least an hour each way so he can have a garden that he barely knows how to tend to, for one.
He texts Nie Mingjue and Jin Guangyao about finding an apartment that evening, and gets a rather cryptic response.
In Dimples We Trust 8:37 PM
That certainly makes things more convenient.
Mr. Unclean 8:39 PM
Don’t fuck it up.
He stares at the message from Nie Mingjue and wonders how his friend even knows that he has something to screw up (and quickly squashing the stray thought of him being enough of a mess to just always have one). Then, he recalls that his younger brother is Nie Huaisang, and their mutual best friend Jin Guangyao, so it’s entirely possible that they already know about the text , even though Lan Xichen hadn’t told them anything about it (yet, at least).
As he’s doing his nightly yoga routine, his heart is thumping as he thinks, and he knows that it isn’t because he’s holding astavakrasana.
On Tuesday, he gets a text from Jin Guangyao just as he’s arriving home from work. It’s a picture of a scraggle of kittens, in the midst of pouncing on each other and tussling around. He gets a second picture not long after, this time of a small black kitten with a triangle for a tail and sharp blue eyes, that seem to be challenging him as he looks longer at the photo. It’s all incredibly cute.
In Dimples We Trust 5:32 PM
Remind you of someone?
In Dimples We Trust 5:34 PM
They’re looking for volunteers
He gets a third picture then, of a call for volunteers at a local adoption shelter. When he takes a closer look at it, he’s startled when he reads the name of the location. It’s the same one that he’d found Jiang Cheng in all those years ago; the same one that he’d mentioned in a story that he’d told around Thanksgiving, of a cat in a bowtie and Jiang Cheng definitely not flirting with it.
He wonders if Jin Guangyao had done this on purpose, but when has the man ever not done something without some sort of intent?
His thumb hovers over the photo, and he thinks. As his mind turns, he remembers curling his fingers into Jiang Cheng’s as they passed by the various puppies being held at the shelter, and noting the wistful look on his face. He’d picked up a book the next day, Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezy, and he decides to drop by a local bookstore tomorrow and find another copy of it.
On Wednesday, he and Lan Wangji try a more ambitious recipe together. It’s confit byaldi , or as his brother insists with a gentle persistence, ratatouille from Disney’s hit movie, Ratatouille . He thinks he picked this up from Wei Wuxian, who he sort of suspects he’ll have to grovel to sometime in the near future (…he definitely needs to improve his spice tolerance).
They blanch tomatoes and carefully peel off the skins, roast bell peppers over the open fire of Lan Wangji’s stove, and methodically slice zucchinis and eggplants and even more tomatoes into thin, even rounds. There’s a smooth spreading of the sauce they’d made from scratch on to the bottom of an oval dish, precise placing of a snake of vegetables over it, and a sprinkling of salt and herbs, before the whole thing is put into the oven under a sheet of meticulously cut parchment paper.
There isn’t a single speck of tomato sauce to be wiped up from a range hood, and as Lan Xichen is leaning against the kitchen counter, he can almost feel the ghost of Jiang Cheng’s chin being hooked on his shoulder and an impressed kiss being pressed to his cheek.
He rubs at the phantom spot, looking to the side. He thinks about what words he could possibly say to convince the spectre to stay.
On Thursday, he and his brother get Chinese takeout for dinner, and Lan Xichen is quietly looking at listings for apartments in areas he might be interested in living in. He’s quietly browsing with Lan Wangji looking over his shoulder, giving a Mn (approval) or Mn (derogatory) as he scrolls through the various one-bedroom apartments. It’s between bites of General Tsao’s and perfectly overcooked broccoli that he clicks on one listing that makes his heart stop.
It’s a loft apartment with large windows all along one of the walls, and he can already picture sitting in the living room with Jiang Cheng as they fight for the last bite of orange chicken, the man using those ridiculously long legs of his to push him away as he pops the morsel into his mouth. He can already imagine waking up to a grumpy, dark mess of bedhead as the sun rises through those windows, and pulling Jiang Cheng’s warm body closer to him as he snuggles further into crisp, white sheets.
But he’s getting ahead of himself here, and the first step that he should be taking is clicking the button to indicate his interest and set up a viewing of the apartment. So he does (after his didi also gives his nod of approval), and puts a reminder in his calendar for a meeting with the listing agent to see the place this Sunday afternoon.
On Friday, he gets a text from Nie Mingjue asking if he has any plans. He says that he does, with him , and promptly gets called a loser for his efforts. He laughs as he grabs his winter coat to meet Nie Mingjue at whatever bar he’d dug out of the barrel of the worst rated Yelp reviews, and when he sees his friend he asks him if he ever tastes iron in his mouth from constantly being a pot that calls the kettle black.
Jin Guangyao can’t join them tonight because he has a last-minute deadline that his incompetent worm of a manager dropped on him the morning of, so Nie Mingjue has an extra drink in his name and Lan Xichen works his way through a bowl of overly salted peanuts with a glass of water that tastes faintly of beer. He blinks, and he sees Jiang Cheng, leaning against him in laughter when Nie Mingjue accidentally overshoots his mouth a little when he takes a swig from his bottle.
He misses him. He can admit that. He’s been missing him for five years, and he wants to be with him again. He wants to learn all of the things he’s been absent for; wants to learn Jiang Cheng again and see what things have changed, what things have stayed the same. He wants to know if the man is still ticklish right behind his left ear, or if he still takes his coffee black in the mornings but doused in cream and sugar in the afternoon. He wants to learn where he can slot himself back into his life, if he’s even allowed to, and whether or not they still line up together like a plate that’s been cracked perfectly down the middle.
He eats another peanut, and he thinks, and he hopes next week means the tomorrow he’s been anticipating in his head.
On Saturday, he gets a call.
“ Hey. Sorry for the short notice, but are you free around 1?”
Lan Xichen checks the time, even though he already knows that he has nothing planned for the day, by hopeful purpose. It’s currently around 12:11 PM, so it will be just under an hour until he sees Jiang Cheng…if he agrees to this.
Of course he agrees to this.
“Yes, I am,” he responds.
“ Ok , meet me in the field?”
Lan Xichen almost chokes. Did Jiang Cheng somehow find out about his Mr. Darcy inspirations?
He quickly shoots the thought down, because it’s completely ridiculous, and Jiang Cheng is still waiting for an answer. His mind races as he tries to figure out what location he actually means, and rapidly realizes that he must be thinking of the field in front of their old main campus, by Convocation Hall.
Which makes much more sense than some flower covered landscape surrounded by twittering bird calls and romantic morning mist. It’s winter, after all.
“I can do that.”
“ I’ll see you then.”
And just as suddenly as he’d called him, he hangs up. Lan Xichen tries not to take the action too much to heart; Jiang Cheng has always had a penchant to act a little brusquely when faced with a situation of emotional intensity, preferring to bite the bullet and just act out whatever was on his mind. In fact, the whole interaction gives him a little hope; the man didn’t tell him to disappear from his life forever, or sound all that upset, though he also didn’t really reveal anything about what he was thinking of, either.
In the silence of the phone still held to his ear, Lan Xichen’s nerves finally catch up to him. He’d immediately picked up the call when he saw Jiang Cheng’s name flashing on his caller ID, and everything had happened so quickly that he didn’t exactly get a chance to process anything until the man had already hung up. But now, standing in his room with his alarm clock on the floor from his haste to find his phone, he can feel the pinpricks of tension starting to rise within him.
This is really happening, isn't it? In approximately 19 minutes, he will begin the process of bending down to tie his boots, slipping on his coat, his leather gloves, and leaving his brother’s townhouse. In 29 minutes, he will be turning right, down a path through his old university and into the woods of his memories. In 44 minutes, he’ll see the path widening out into an expanse of spottled white; old, grey buildings encompassing the square and the pointed tips of Soldier’s Tower rising just barely above the rest of the architecture.
A strong gust of wind blows through his coat, and Lan Xichen blinks. He’s now standing at the edge of the field, the time having passed like sand through his fingertips, drifting and transforming into the snow crunching below his feet. Dimly, he knows how he got here, but…how did he get here?
His stomach feels like it’s twisted itself into knots, the silk rope tight and commanding as it binds his heart to his throat. He takes a deep breath to allow his brain to catch up with his surroundings, and the coldness of the air is grounding with how it bites into his lungs. He’s five minutes early by design, but there’s something telling him that Jiang Cheng is already here.
He scans over the few people in the field, his eyes briefly lighting upon a few groups of bundled up friends strolling through the quad. It isn’t long before his gaze lands on a singular figure, tucked into the alcove of one of the far buildings and facing away from him.
But Lan Xichen doesn’t need to see his face; he would recognize the faintest whisper of the man anywhere, with how frequently his eyes have been looking for him for the past five years. The cut of Jiang Cheng’s shoulders are familiar and intimidating, though it’s currently softened by the presence of a fuzzy blue scarf wrapped around his neck.
He moves to approach Jiang Cheng, mechanically placing one foot in front of the other and watching the breeze blow through his hair as the man looks somewhere off into the distance. He needs to hold his breath to keep from choking on all of his nerves as he gets closer, his mind spinning as the image of that face in profile gets sharper and sharper.
There are two warring thoughts that tug him between eagerness and reluctance as he forces himself to continue walking. The pull of his desire for Jiang Cheng to look at him and only him moves him forward , but the push of his fear of finding that desire not reciprocated tugs him back, and he doesn’t know which one will be the one to rip him apart.
When he’s about halfway there, Jiang Cheng tilts his head toward him, and there’s a slight falter in Lan Xichen’s step when their eyes meet. He can’t see too well from this distance, but there’s an undercurrent of tension running through Jiang Cheng’s shoulders and in the way that he’s standing, his hands tucked into his jacket as he observes his approach. He isn’t smiling, but he isn’t frowning either, and it’s the pinprick of hope that Lan Xichen needs to keep moving.
When he’s about two arm’s lengths away, he stops.
He breathes.
“Thanks for coming,” Jiang Cheng says, and Lan Xichen nods.
“Of course.”
The silence is awkward, stilted, necessary.
For all of his thinking, when he finally sees Jiang Cheng all of his thoughts seem to disappear like deer startled off the road, and he finds himself tongue-tied. He’s struggling, because he wants to get closer, but he doesn’t think it would be welcome. He’s struggling, because he wants to find out if perhaps he’s wrong, but he doesn’t know what he would do if he isn’t. He’s struggling, because Jiang Cheng is looking at him like he’s treading water too, when he’s already the ocean that Lan Xichen is drowning in.
“Wanyin – ”
“Xichen, I – ”
He stops, and there’s an awkward laugh. He nods at Jiang Cheng, making a flimsy gesture with his hand for the man to continue.
Jiang Cheng huffs, his arm coming up to rest his hand on the back of his scarf.
“I…” he starts, then stops, then starts again, his singular focus slowly pinning Lan Xichen under the weight of his gaze. “I’m sorry.”
Lan Xichen takes a startled lungful of chilly air.
“Whatever for, Wanyin?”
He shrugs slightly. “For…running off and ghosting you, basically. After…you know.”
“Ah, I see.” Lan Xichen smiles hesitantly, his hand clenching into a tight fist in his pocket. He wants so badly to tuck Jiang Cheng’s hair behind his ear, or to brush away the guarded set of his mouth. But he can’t, so instead he says, “Well, it’s not like I reached out…after. Either.” He chuckles ruefully.
Jiang Cheng takes another breath, his brows furrowing with the effort of trying to bring out whatever it is he’s about to say. “I also want to apologize for…leading you on. I shouldn’t have done that.”
It always surprises Lan Xichen, how much Jiang Cheng likes to martyr himself.
“If you were leading, Wanyin, it wasn’t to anywhere I wasn’t already going.”
Jiang Cheng flushes lightly, tucking his nose slightly into his scarf, and it frustrates Lan Xichen so much . This dancing, this talking around, this use of loaded language when he knows that Jiang Cheng prefers to be direct. He can only imagine that he’s doing it to give Lan Xichen some sort of plausible deniability, or to give him some degree of separation from his actions and the consequences of them. Or maybe he just doesn’t want to hear the words out loud, because then they would exist in this liminal space between them, no longer trapped between lines read through staggered fingers.
But Lan Xichen wants them to exist, because his feelings exist, and he’s had enough of denying them. The words burn in his throat, and as he takes a breath he can feel them clawing through his lungs, begging to finally be set free. He needs to say this. He needs to know. He needs to give form to what he’s ignored for so long, with all the inevitability of an avalanche tumbling through the sheer force of gravity, and Lan Xichen can only hope that he doesn’t get buried.
He takes a breath, and lets the first snowball drop.
“I’m still in love with you, Wanyin.”
He steps closer to Jiang Cheng, and he doesn’t miss how he shifts his shoulders to face him better.
“I’m sorry that I caused this rift between you and Khalil, but I would be a liar if I didn’t admit that I grew hopeful when I heard the news. I’m not that good of a man.”
He’s halved the distance now, pausing slightly to gauge Jiang Cheng’s body language. He’s watching him carefully, but nothing about him says that he doesn’t want Lan Xichen there, so he continues on.
“I’m sorry that I left, Wanyin.” His voice catches as he speaks, but he has to forge onwards if he wants to break down the wall that he can still see in Jiang Cheng’s eyes. “I’m sorry that I let things fall the way that I did. I’m sorry that I never messaged you, afterwards. I’m sorry for all of the pain and confusion that I caused you back then, and when I came back.”
Jiang Cheng looks to the side, but Lan Xichen can see it for the act of vulnerability that it is. He’s always been more confrontational, staring down whoever was approaching him, so for Jiang Cheng to break his gaze at a time like this is akin to the man admitting that his words are having an effect on him. That his words are pushing him somewhere.
And hopefully, it’s towards the direction that Lan Xichen wants.
“You know,” Jiang Cheng says suddenly, stopping him in his tracks. “Whenever I think about how things ended between us, I can never remember who it was that actually said I’m breaking up with you , or anything along those lines.”
Lan Xichen is a little startled by the sudden change in subject, but he’s also had the same wonderings, (whenever he builds up enough strength to think of that particular time).
“I’ve always thought that maybe it was just lost in the intensity of everything that I was feeling then, or that it got smushed into the blur of all the days that came afterwards.” He pauses, and inexplicably, his shoulders seem to relax as he turns back towards Lan Xichen. “But I don’t think I’d forget something like that.”
Jiang Cheng is the one that steps forward, this time, and Lan Xichen’s heart races as he finally gets close enough to feel a certain heat radiating off of his body. Luckily, the alcove they’re standing in is relatively private, even if it’s technically still fully visible from the field.
“I’m thinking that maybe we never really did end things properly, back then,” he says. Lan Xichen has to bend his head forward a little to hear him better, but he also just can’t resist the magnetic pull of Jiang Cheng’s eyes.
“It would explain why I can’t fucking let you go.”
Lan Xichen sucks in a breath through his nose, the admission ringing clear between them. He’d suspected, he’d dreamed , for this, but to actually hear it is still a joy and an anguish that his heart can barely handle.
“I can’t do this again,” Jiang Cheng whispers, and Lan Xichen’s stomach immediately plummets from the anger and frustration that he can detect simmering below the surface. “I hurt Khalil, and he was so good to me.” He pauses, and his face is contorted into something complicated and heartbreaking, his breath slightly hitched. Lan Xichen feels numb all over, just anticipating the fall of the axe that his hope had turned into, soaring high above him.
“So I need to know, Xichen,” and his eyes are shiny as they bore into his soul. “While I can still walk away. Are you staying?”
The axe stills in its descent.
“Yes,” Lan Xichen replies, and all the sounds around them seem to drop away, until the only things that seem to exist anymore are them, their breaths, and the way they’re focused so unshakably on each other. “I’ve found that there are some things that I can’t do again, either.” He stops, watching the slow flutter of Jiang Cheng’s eyelashes as he blinks, and it’s with a final, decisive certainty that he realizes that he’s found where his heart is now.
He takes a final breath, and he speaks his truth.
“I can’t leave you.”
The words settle between them like the snow falling gently on the ground, and Lan Xichen watches as specks of white are blown softly onto shoulders that are no longer raised in self-defense.
“Wanyin,” he says, but he thinks that he might have replaced the man’s name with the word please. Please , let me make this right. Please , let’s start anew. Please , give me a chance to prove to you that I’m telling the truth.
But he knows that Jiang Cheng is a man of action, and there might be a better way for him to try to pour all of his thoughts and emotions and promises into a gesture that he’ll hopefully understand.
“May I kiss you?”
Jiang Cheng takes a quick breath, his grey eyes flicking rapidly to meet his gaze. In the depth of the storm, Lan Xichen can see his hesitation, a bit of fear, and even a little uncertainty. But most overwhelmingly, he can see desire in the way the light catches against his irises, in his slow blinking and the way that he tilts his chin just a little higher in challenge and preparation.
“Yes.”
Lan Xichen lightly places his fingers on Jiang Cheng’s elbows, and watches his face as he begins to dip down. It’s carefully blank now, and the anticipation between them draws tight like sugar being spun into thread. He leans in so very, very slowly, and unlike the last time he did this there isn’t the blaring siren of panic flashing in the back of his mind. If anything, this just feels right .
And when the radiance of Jiang Cheng’s face becomes too much for him to bear, he slips his eyes shut and follows the path he’s tread so often before.
There’s a soft press against his lips, then a careful opening of mouths, and the chains that have been holding Lan Xichen back snap like brittle rust under the hammering of his heart. A roar of happiness rushes through him, starting from his chest and beaming outwards like a ray of golden light, warming him from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. He brings his hands up to cup Jiang Cheng’s face, and as his fingers brush through those bangs that he’s ached to touch for much too long, he tilts his head a little more to the side and loses himself in the addicting slide of their tongues. Jiang Cheng makes a quiet noise underneath him, and it sounds in equal measures of desperation and light-headed relief.
He can’t believe that this is happening. He can’t believe that he ever let this go.
Lan Xichen pushes closer, and now that he’s allowed to, he can’t get enough of the man that’s opening himself up so willingly to him again, so heartbreakingly forgiving and hopeful and Lan Xichen will do anything, anything to make up for his sins. Almost unthinkingly, he backs Jiang Cheng up against the wall behind him, moving one of his hands to provide a soft barrier between his head and the hard brick. He feels a pull on the lapels of his coat, and he follows it, leaning impossibly closer into the gravitational pull of Jiang Cheng’s being. The winter air is still cold and biting on his cheeks, but the flames at the base of his spine lick higher and higher, until he’s certain that he’s burning alive.
He brings one hand down to grip tightly at Jiang Cheng’s waist, until he can feel the slight give of his body underneath him. As he curls his fingers into the leather, he knows. He knows, in the depths of his heart and his soul and the very essence of his existence, that for as long as the sun and the moon chased each other in their endless dance across the sky, he would never let him go again.
Someone wolf whistles loudly in the distance, and a series of loud and excited whoops follow, startling Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng apart. They look to the source of the sound, and a group of students are watching them as they walk across the field, one of them swinging their hat in circles above their head. Another cups their hands around their mouth and yells, “Get a room , you two!” and then laughs, full-bodied and drunk. After one more shout they move on, sounds of merriment following them as they go.
There’s a stunned silence between them, and Lan Xichen starts to laugh softly at the realization that they’d just been caught necking it in some shady corner of their old university campus. He looks back down at Jiang Cheng, and there’s amusement in his grey eyes, as well as a delightful flush peeking out above the fuzzy strands of his scarf. He curls his fists loosely against Lan Xichen’s coat and thumps him once on the chest, softly, and Lan Xichen takes the hint to move a little further away to a more acceptable distance. He’s reluctant to go much more than a hands’ breadth, though, especially since he’s just gotten permission to be so close again.
“So…” Jiang Cheng says, and his laugh is light and breathless. “I guess that answers…that.”
Lan Xichen tilts his head down until their foreheads are touching, going a little cross-eyed as he continues to look at the man before him. “Yes,” he replies, and he’s reeling still, in joy and shock and just a general disbelief. “I suppose so.”
Jiang Cheng chuckles, and then his smile slips into something a little more solemn. He’s looking away from Lan Xichen again, and Lan Xichen reaches his hands forwards to take his, linking their fingers loosely together as he waits for Jiang Cheng to re-organize his thoughts.
“I really…I really thought you were the one back then,” he whispers, and Lan Xichen would fight a thousand fierce corpses, bleeding and weak and with only a single sword by his side, if it meant that he could take back the last five years. “I really thought that we’d get married and have the white picket fence and everything .”
“And now?” Lan Xichen asks, and there’s a slight tone of desperation in his voice that he can’t quite suppress. Everything still feels so fragile, so new, even though the love he feels for Jiang Cheng is familiar. “Is that something you could think again?”
Jiang Cheng laughs, and it sounds dry. He’s still looking away from him, but Lan Xichen isn’t about to force his eyes back on him. “Probably, if I’m being honest.” He hesitates, and Lan Xichen feels thumbs brushing over the backs of his hands.
“You broke my heart, Xichen,” he eventually whispers, and when he turns back towards him his gaze is sharp and melancholic. “I felt like you were choosing…and maybe, actually you weren’t…but it was like you were, and fuck .” His face slips closed, and all Lan Xichen can do is squeeze his fingers and wait, his heart hammering in his throat.
“It felt like you were choosing a life without me.”
Lan Xichen thinks he’s going to be making this up to Jiang Cheng for all of eternity. After a moment, he says the only thing he can say.
“I’m sorry, Wanyin. I made a mistake. It was, without you, I – ” He shakes his head, bringing Jiang Cheng’s hands up to his lips to place a soft, trembling kiss on to his gloved fingers. “It wasn’t much of a life at all.”
There’s a sharp intake of breath in the cold air, before the smallest, slightest sound of a whisper, “What if it takes a thousand years for me to forgive you?”
“That’s fine, because it would be a thousand years I get to spend with you.”
Lan Xichen raises his head so he can look the other in the eyes, and the smile on Jiang Cheng’s lips is small, a little wobbly, but most importantly, genuine .
“I guess it’s you, then.” Jiang Cheng says, and Lan Xichen stops breathing. The man is staring back at him, his slate-coloured gaze holding bottomless pools of affection and so, so achingly beautiful.
“It’s always been you.”
A sob slips out from Lan Xichen’s lips, and he doesn’t know what he did in his past life to have possibly deserved something as good as this, but he’s so boundlessly grateful he feels a little dizzy. He swoops back into those magnetic lips, because he can’t stand another second of not kissing Jiang Cheng (he has time to make up for, after all) and their mouths slot back together like they were never made to be apart.
The moments stretch into years, and Lan Xichen can see their future in bold and brilliant colour. He wonders how he could have possibly been so blind to it before.
When they part again, they’re wearing matching grins, and Jiang Cheng takes his arm when he offers it out to him as they leave. Lan Xichen’s heart is so full it’s overflowing, and in the place where they’d first met, where they had loved and fought and hurt and healed and fell together and apart in a glorious storm of memories and mistakes and second chances…
They start again.