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The moment Song Lan stepped into the courtyard he knew something was wrong. Xingchen was sitting on the steps, brow furrowed and head slightly bowed; Song Lan looked for Xue Yang and didn’t see him, or, more concerningly, hear him.
“Chengmei?” Xingchen said, sitting up with a little start.
“It’s me,” Song Lan said, walking cautiously over, his mind already racing through worst case scenarios. Several of them involved fresh corpses. Others only one.
Xingchen’s face relaxed even as his shoulders dropped slightly in what looked like disappointment. Song Lan tried not to take it personally. “Zichen,” he said, rising to his feet and walking to meet him. He held out his hands and Song Lan rested his own on them, lightly. “You’re back.”
“Yes,” Song Lan said after a brief pause. “I didn’t think I was gone all that long, and I was only across the city. You knew that.” Though he supposed it wasn’t all that unusual. Xingchen could be a touch fretful at times. Quick to anxiety when he was left alone.
Song Lan tried hard, most of the time, not to think about why.
“You weren’t,” Xingchen said with a small smile. “But I can still be glad you’re here now, can’t I?”
The wave of fondness that struck Song Lan was so strong it almost hurt. “I’m not going to complain,” he said quietly, squeezing Xingchen’s hands, drawing back before it could become too much.
Then Xingchen said, “have you seen Chengmei?” and his stomach dropped.
“No,” he said after a moment. “Have you?” He knew Xue Yang was volatile right now. That he was testy and jumpy and scared, and that it was pushing him toward dangerous places. If he’d gone looking for a fight, or if anything that could turn into one found him…
If someone died Song Lan wouldn’t be able to let it go. It would have to be the end.
The idea of having to kill Xue Yang had long since stopped being a pleasant fantasy.
Xingchen hesitated and Song Lan could see, plainly, that there was something he was considering saying, and then saw him decide against it. “He was here,” he said. “He...left.”
“To go where?” Song Lan asked carefully. Xingchen paused again.
“I’m not certain,” he said. “He was...might have been...distressed.”
Song Lan’s worry spiked. “Might have been?” he said, hearing his own voice sharpening, thinking and you just let him run off, what does ‘distressed’ mean, was he angry, but of course Xingchen didn’t know why that would be so dangerous, why it could be the ruin of them all. Or maybe he did know, the way he’d been behaving. Which was precisely what had Xue Yang in this state to begin with. If he’d just said something, stopped being a coward and…
But he hadn’t. Because even if he wasn’t quite so pessimistic about the possible outcome as Xue Yang obviously was, he couldn’t be sure he was wrong. Xingchen wouldn’t hurt him; of that, he was absolutely certain.
But Xingchen might decide that justice demanded Xue Yang’s life. And if that happened, Song Lan didn’t think he would be capable of going against him.
His imagination flashed him an image of Xue Yang sprawled on the ground, bleeding into the dust, near-black eyes glazing over.
“I couldn’t see him to know for sure,” Xingchen said, with a touch of waspishness, though it wasn’t very strong. “And he didn’t say anything.”
Song Lan’s stomach tried to sink further. “What happened?”
Xingchen pressed his lips together. Hesitating again, and Song Lan’s “whatever you’re holding back, just say it, Xingchen,” came out sharp.
Xingchen’s expression hardened very slightly and he lifted his chin. “Don’t you think there’s some irony in you saying that to me, Zichen?” he said.
Song Lan’s mind went blank. What do you mean, he thought, but he couldn’t. He just couldn’t and, shamefully, he crumpled.
“Xingchen,” he said helplessly. “I have to - I’m sorry, there’s something I have to confess, and I only ask humbly that you listen to me before–”
Xingchen’s expression flickered, remaining hard for another moment while he struggled for words before it broke back to something more familiar, gentler. “Zichen,” he said, “it’s all right. I already know what you’re going to say. Xue Yang beat you to it.”
Song Lan registered the words. He understood their meaning. And yet it took him all too long to put it together properly. “What?” he said blankly.
“Xue Yang told me the truth about his identity,” Xingchen said, sounding quite calm other than the worry.
The truth about his identity. Not the rest. Song Lan set that aside for now though he knew - knew it probably shouldn’t be forever.
So Xue Yang had told Xingchen his real name - of his own will, it sounded like. And now he wasn’t here.
Icy water was beginning to spread through his veins. “Xingchen,” he said.
“I already knew,” Xingchen said. “I just wanted one of you to actually say it, out loud, to me. And you were taking a long time, I thought it might help if I…”
He trailed off.
“Tried to force the issue,” Song Lan said. His voice sounded odd to his own ears. Xingchen knew - had known… “For how long?”
Xingchen pressed his lips together again. “It was the zhuhuai that cemented it,” he said after a moment. “But there were...a number of details that, once I was considering it, were clear enough. The biggest obstacle to my belief was you. I couldn’t imagine you allowing it. Allowing Xue Yang to remain.” His expression cracked a little, and he said, “I couldn’t imagine you lying to me.”
That cut. Deep and painfully enough to overcome the growing fear. The more so because he deserved it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, horribly inadequate. “Xingchen - I couldn’t, I wanted - it was his idea,” he said, and immediately felt a stab of guilt even if it was true, Xue Yang had all but bullied him into it. But he’d still had a choice.
“I thought so,” Xingchen said.
What came to mind next, weakly, was he wanted to keep you happy, but he held it back because it would be absurd, right now, to try to defend Xue Yang.
He brought his hands together and bowed low, even if Xingchen couldn’t witness the gesture. “I’ve wronged you–”
“Zichen,” Xingchen interrupted, “I’ve already forgiven you. Yes. I was angry. But that isn’t as important as...as you are. You made your choice. I made mine.”
Song Lan straightened, his eyes burning. “Xingchen…”
“I know my mind.”
The air shuddered out of Song Lan’s lungs. He felt...shaken. Lost. Like he ought to kneel down before Xingchen and offer to do anything to atone for his wretched crime.
But something else was pricking at him. Alongside the guilt and the shame.
“Xue Yang,” he said. “He told you, and then he left.”
Xingchen paused again. “Yes,” he said, voice shifting, the thread of worry reappearing. “I thought he’d gone to...warn you, maybe?”
The hopeful note held a hint of desperation. He’d wanted to believe that.
“What happened,” he asked again, more urgently. He remembered their last conversation about this. Remembered the wild, half mad look on Xue Yang’s face, the look in his eyes that promised violence. For a moment Song Lan had genuinely thought he was going to attack him. He’d been a man on the edge for weeks (and you did nothing) and this was precisely the thing that would tip him over it.
He remembered Xue Yang’s utter certainty, immediately after the zhuhuai. Xiao Xingchen would’ve just grabbed you and run me through on the road on the way back.
“He told me,” Xiao Xingchen said slowly. “I told him that I already knew. He asked...if I was still going to call him Chengmei. I asked if he didn’t want me to. Then...he didn’t say anything. And when I reached for him he left.” He paused, and then said, quieter, “ran.”
Song Lan squeezed his eyes - the eyes Xingchen had given him, that he’d never asked for, the terrible parting gift - closed. He could imagine it. He remembered Xue Yang’s reaction when...the time he’d taken off when they were having sex. How quickly he’d just...disappeared, and Song Lan had thought he’s going to kill someone but he hadn’t.
When Xue Yang was scared he did one of two things: he attacked first, or he made himself scarce. Fight or flight.
“Zichen?” Xingchen said.
“What made you think it was a good idea to play mind games with him?” Song Lan said, his voice strangely distant.
Xiao Xingchen faltered. “I didn’t think he would react so…”
“Violently?” Song Lan said, and could hear how caustic it was, and some part of him thought what right do you have to be angry right now but another part of him was thinking really? What did you think was going to happen?
Xiao Xingchen’s shoulders tensed and he raised his chin again. “It should have been a relief,” he said.
“It wasn’t,” Song Lan said, “but I’m not talking about that, I’m talking about the fact that you’ve known this long and you decided to play games with it?”
“I wasn’t playing games,” Xingchen said.
He noticed the hurt, but he was gaining momentum and it wasn’t enough to stop him. “That’s exactly what you’ve been doing,” Song Lan said. “And you know it. Haven’t you noticed the effect it’s been having?”
Xiao Xingchen’s expression grew more stubborn. “What the two of you did–”
“I recognize,” Song Lan interrupted, “that it was wrong. But if you knew who he was then you knew how unstable he is. Even if you didn’t know the whole truth, that’s not exactly subtle. And these last weeks he’s been almost going mad over your hints and insinuations, and you know it.”
Xiao Xingchen faltered again, just a little. “Zichen…”
“And what about me?” Song Lan demanded. “What about what you were doing to me? Batting me back and forth like a cat with a mouse.”
“You lied to me,” Xingchen said. “For so long, every day, you were lying to me.”
“And that justifies treating our - my feelings like a toy? Did you really think that this would all end up just fine, without any consequences?”
“I wouldn’t have pushed you if you’d just told me–”
“Because that wouldn’t have made things worse at all,” Song Lan said.
“What did you think I was going to do,” Xingchen said, his voice suddenly sharp again. “Walk away?”
“You did it before,” Song Lan said, and even as he spoke it knew he’d gone too far.
Silence gaped between them.
“I didn’t think it would go like this,” Xingchen said. His voice had changed, gone smaller, and Song Lan’s stomach suddenly lurched sideways. He heard his own voice, hoarse with grief and from screaming, saying I think it’s best if we never meet again, like a door slamming closed.
Xiao Xingchen saying I’ll fix this, I promise, Zichen, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
He took a step back, the anger draining out of him. Unfortunately that only left the fear and the sickening shame.
“Do you have any idea where Xue Yang might have gone,” he said heavily.
Xiao Xingchen shook his head silently. Song Lan sighed.
“I’ll go look,” he said. Xiao Xingchen, after a moment, nodded.
“All right,” he said quietly, subdued, and Song Lan’s heart twisted. He opened his mouth, then closed it, tugged between the urgent feeling that he needed to find Xue Yang quickly and the feeling that there was no point in looking.
“Xingchen,” he said, pained, “you don’t…”
Xingchen turned his face away, drawing back. “I’ll stay here in case he comes back,” he said, sounding horribly distant. Song Lan steeled himself and reached out to catch him. Xingchen stilled.
“I shouldn’t have raised my voice,” he said. “You...I don’t have any right to chastise you.”
“You aren’t wrong,” Xingchen said. “About...maybe I shouldn’t have. I’ve just been so - frustrated and I really did think that as soon as it was done...shouldn’t telling the truth be a relief?”
Song Lan searched for the right words. After a moment Xingchen let out an unhappy laugh.
“I suppose it wasn’t a relief for me to know.”
That cut, too. Song Lan’s heart seemed to have become a stone in his chest. “I should have told you,” he said, anguished.
“When?” Xingchen said, sounding almost resigned. “When you first came? What would have happened then? In the last six months? Would that have been better? Maybe there was no way to handle this that wouldn’t…cause problems.”
“You should’ve locked him in the house first,” Song Lan said without thinking. Xiao Xingchen’s lips twitched toward a slightly unwilling smile.
“I don’t think,” he said, “that would’ve gone any better.”
Stomach bubbling, heart sore, guilty and worried and frustrated all in equal measure, Song Lan went out looking for Xue Yang.
He had no idea where to start. No idea where Xue Yang’s hiding places might be, though he had no doubt he had them; where he might go seeking safety.
How far he might go.
Xue Yang had Jiangzai with him. He could already be a long ways away, in any direction, going anywhere. It was very plausible that this could be an end, after all: that Xue Yang would disappear and this time not come back.
Once upon a time that would have been a relief.
He circled the city, asking if anyone might have seen him, but he got nothing but curious looks. He went to the gates and looked out at the road. If he were Xue Yang–
But he wasn’t, of course, and he had absolutely no idea how to try to put himself in his incomprehensible head.
He tried it anyway. Tried to imagine what he would be thinking, feeling. What he would do with it.
Song Lan paused and realized he wasn’t very concerned about whether Xue Yang would hurt someone. It was a possibility, of course - it always was - but it didn’t feel like the most likely.
He kept coming back instead to the fact that Xue Yang had always been sure that Xingchen would kill him. He’d indicated more than once that he expected Song Lan to leap at the opportunity.
Rather than taking the risk…
His stomach felt hollow.
Song Lan returned to the yizhuang, where Xingchen was still alone. “It’s me,” he said, before Xingchen could get excited. “I didn’t find him.”
Xingchen’s brows furrowed again. Song Lan summoned the conviction he could find and said, “he’s probably just sulking somewhere.”
Xingchen frowned in his direction, but it didn’t look very sincere.
“Why aren’t you angrier?” Song Lan asked. Xingchen looked down.
“I don’t want to be,” he said after several moments, quietly. Song Lan thought is that because you’re afraid that I’ll turn on you again and a tangled mixture of hurt and frustration and pain wound around his heart and squeezed. “I’ve been happy,” Xingchen said, which eased that a little. “Ultimately I decided that was what mattered most. That you and Chengmei have made me happy.”
“Are you going to keep calling him that?” Song Lan asked, because he didn’t know how to answer the rest.
“Unless he tells me to stop,” Xingchen said. “It’s his courtesy name, he said.”
Song Lan hadn’t known he had one. He’d assumed the name was an invention. It was, he thought ruefully, just like Xue Yang to give Xingchen his real name, barely disguised.
His heart was hurting again.
“Xingchen,” he said helplessly, “you’re–” He paused, at a loss for words. Searching for a quotation that might be appropriate, but nothing came.
“Thank you, Zichen,” Xingchen said with a small, soft smile, though it looked fragile. He looked fragile. Song Lan hesitated.
“Xingchen,” he said slowly. He turned away.
“You think he left, don’t you,” Xingchen said heavily. “For good.” Song Lan pressed his lips together and exhaled slowly through his nose.
“I don’t know,” he said, because he couldn’t say I think it’s a distinct possibility that grows more likely the longer he’s gone. We might’ve already missed our chance to catch him before he’s in the wind.
“Are you worried about what he’ll do?”
Song Lan hesitated, and Xingchen made an unhappy noise. “You are,” he said. “I don’t want to be but - people fall back into old habits when they’re under emotional stress.”
Old habits, Song Lan thought, was an odd way to describe murder. But he left it alone.
“It’d be my fault,” Xingchen said.
“No,” Song Lan said at once.
“It is,” Xingchen said. “Even if he doesn’t - even if nothing happens except that you’re right and he doesn’t come back, that would be my fault too, wouldn’t it?”
“Xingchen–”
“Or even if he does I could say the wrong thing and ruin everything,” Xingchen said, and Song Lan could recognize the signs of him working himself up and his stomach clenched.
“Xingchen,” he said again, more loudly, “listen to me. Listen. You’re not–” He choked on the words momentarily, and then said, “it’s not your fault. He lied to you. We lied to you.”
“That doesn’t give me the right to treat your feelings like a toy,” Xingchen said, and the echo of his own earlier words made Song Lan wince.
“Zichen,” Xingchen said, casting his eyes down, “I don’t want to ruin this.”
With a spike of anger Song Lan said, “if anyone is responsible for ruining anything it’s Xue Yang,” but all he got was an unhappy expression from Xiao Xingchen.
“I don’t want him to be frightened of me,” he said, and Song Lan winced again.
“He isn’t,” Song Lan said, which wasn’t exactly true, but thankfully Xingchen didn’t argue the point. “And you’re not going to...we’ll work this out.”
The words felt strange on his tongue. He hoped they were true. He wasn’t sure he believed them.
Xingchen didn’t answer, his hands twisting together.
“Don’t blame yourself,” Song Lan said. “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“I could have,” Xingchen said. “It was thoughtless, dangerous, and it hurt you, I didn’t want to hurt you, Zichen, I didn’t…” He trailed off, and shuddered, his shoulders curving inward. For a moment only, and he straightened himself.
“I’m all right,” Song Lan said awkwardly. “You had the right to...to do much worse.”
“I didn’t want to.”
Song Lan stood there, the silence stretching out. He could see the weight settled on Xingchen’s shoulders and didn’t know how to remove it. He suspected it was partly his fault. Not wholly, but partly.
“I’ll look again,” he said eventually. Xingchen nodded.
“Thank you, Zichen,” he said quietly.
It’ll be all right, Song Lan wanted to say, but he couldn’t. There were so many ways this could go wrong. And he probably hadn’t thought of them all.
There was still no sign of Xue Yang.
Song Lan told himself that there were things he would need. Supplies he wouldn’t leave without, even if he didn’t return to the yizhuang to retrieve them, and the merchants he asked denied seeing him while looking intensely curious and barely refraining from asking.
So maybe he’d just gone to ground somewhere, still inside the city, waiting for cover of darkness to go anywhere. Or maybe he really was just taking some time to cool his head and calm down, which would be surprisingly wise of him but was still a possibility.
Xue Yang could easily steal anything he needed, and he wouldn’t likely have any compunctions about doing so. He would also easily accept traveling light and with few resources if he thought it was necessary. If he was in a hurry, say, to put distance between himself and a perceived threat.
Damn him. Damn him for pulling this, for walking out, what did he think it was going to do to Xingchen? Hadn’t he always pressed Song Lan about leaving him, about how he’d abandoned Xingchen and wounded him by doing so, and now he was going to do the same thing? It was inconsiderate, selfish, even cruel.
You didn’t think that your life was in danger when you pushed him away, murmured a ruthless voice in his thoughts that reminded him of the way Xingchen had flinched, the wounded and fragile look to him. He wondered if Xingchen had looked like that when…
He hadn’t seen his face then, after all. He might have.
Look at you. Making the same mistakes over again. But no, he wasn’t pushing Xingchen away, he wasn’t going to leave him, never again, Xue Yang was the one walking out on Xingchen now.
Or maybe it’s you, said another voice, softer, meaner. You’re the one he still sometimes sees as a threat. And wasn’t Xingchen the one who left you, in the end? Maybe you’re the problem.
Deep in his own thoughts, Song Lan spotted Xue Yang entirely by chance. It was his fifth circuit of Yi City, scanning for Xue Yang or signs of him, checking shadows and alleyways, because if he wasn’t here then he was gone and Song Lan wasn’t ready to accept that yet.
And then there he was, just walking down the street as if nothing had happened and he hadn’t disappeared for some time and Song Lan was going to kill him.
He fixed his eyes on Xue Yang’s back and picked up his pace, keeping his steps light so Xue Yang might not hear him until it was too late.
The moment he was within arm’s reach his hand snapped out and he seized the collar of Xue Yang’s robes to bring him up short, tightening his grip on several layers of cloth so tearing free wouldn’t be easy. Xue Yang twisted around snarling only to come up short when he saw who it was.
For a moment Song Lan was relieved that he didn’t look scared. Wild-eyed and wary and tense, but not afraid.
“You,” he said, voice flat.
“Me,” Song Lan agreed. “We’re going home.”
He saw Xue Yang balk even before he started talking, and interrupted to add, “I can throw you over my shoulder or you can walk. I assume you have a preference.”
Xue Yang did opt for the latter. Song Lan didn’t let go of him, though, keeping his grip on his robes like a leash, or an anchor.
Not this time, he thought. You’re not getting away this time.
Or next time.
At least not without a fight.
All in all, it went better than he’d expected.
For a moment he thought the shaking of Xue Yang’s shoulders was laughter, but he realized quickly that it wasn’t. His face buried in Xiao Xingchen’s robes, hands clutching at him, Song Lan was watching Xue Yang come apart. His heart did something strange. An urge to reach out, to comfort, but he didn’t know if it would even be accepted.
He wondered, unhappily, if it ever would be.
Xingchen raised his head and turned it in Song Lan’s direction. He looked uncertain again. Song Lan wished he could give him an encouraging nod and instead walked over to lay a hand briefly on his shoulder, without touching Xue Yang, which seemed to soothe Xingchen.
At least he could do that. At least Xingchen wasn’t holding his harsh words against him.
He could be grateful for those things.
Song Lan dreamed he was standing in the yizhuang, sword drawn, looking down at Xue Yang’s corpse, glassy eyes staring upward, blood fanning out from the clean stab wound through his heart. A-Qing stood by, expression one of horror, and Xingchen knelt by the body and looked up at him and said, in Song Lan’s own voice, “from now on we should never meet again.”
He stumbled back, knocked onto his heels, and the dream changed, it was just Xingchen, Xingchen kneeling and weeping, begging his forgiveness. His eyes burned and when he raised his hands to touch them his fingers came away red.
“Kill him,” Xiao Xingchen was saying, “Zichen, you need to kill him,” and his sword slid through Xue Yang’s body so easily, his eyes glittering as he raised them to meet Song Lan’s, his fingers closing over Song Lan’s on the hilt and pulling it deeper only Xue Yang was Xingchen…
He woke up breathing hard, his heart thundering in his ears, and immediately rolled to his side so he could see Xingchen next to him, deeply asleep with his mouth slightly open and breathing steadily. He pushed himself up and there was Xue Yang, wrapped around him like a vine and blinking sleepily at Song Lan.
“Nnh?” he said, blurrily, but Song Lan knew in a few moments he’d be the rest of the way awake and he suddenly, violently, couldn’t stand that idea. Not with that dream fresh in his mind.
“Go to sleep,” he said, and knew it came out too harsh when Xue Yang frowned, still sleepy but increasingly disgruntled. “It’s all right,” Song Lan said, moderating his voice. “Just a dream.”
“Oh,” Xue Yang said after a moment of scrutinizing Song Lan like he was trying to detect a lie. He dropped back down, reaching out to snag Song Lan’s sleeve and tugging on it in a clear if weak attempt to pull him back down.
“In a moment,” Song Lan said. Xue Yang squinted at him, but appeared to accept that response and closed his eyes with a contented sounding sigh, nuzzling into the crook of Xingchen’s neck and promptly going back to sleep.
Song Lan envied him his ability to do that.
He didn’t let go of Song Lan’s sleeve.
Song Lan moved his gaze to look at Xingchen instead. Xingchen, who was acting as though nothing was wrong, but Song Lan could feel the brittleness between them. Not as bad as it had been at the beginning, but there, and it terrified him, because this was so fragile, they were so fragile in a way he’d only realized after they’d broken, and…
And again it’s Xue Yang that causes our strife, came the angry thought. He tried to let it go, let it fade. It wasn’t about that, not really. Or it was, but not like before.
His harsh words. Xingchen’s thoughtlessness. His temper.
It took him a while to notice that Xingchen was no longer asleep.
“Zichen?” Xingchen asked, his voice very quiet. He didn’t move, probably to avoid disturbing the man snuggled up against him. “You’re awake, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said after a moment where he considered saying nothing.
“Are you all right?”
“Are you?” Song Lan asked after a brief pause. Xingchen was quiet, and Song Lan said, “I know I was...harsh with you. Undeservedly.”
“Not entirely,” Xingchen said, even more quietly. “You were right. I was...frustrated, and tired of waiting, but maybe I should have just...said something myself.”
Song Lan’s heartstrings twanged. “You were right,” he said. “We...I deserved it. You have every right to be angry. That you aren’t…”
He trailed off.
“I wanted to know that you trusted me,” Xingchen said after a long pause. Then turned his head toward the sleeping Xue Yang and said, “I wanted him to trust me.”
Song Lan decided not to say anything. After another long pause, Xingchen sighed.
“It was a lie,” he said. “Wasn’t it. When he said he didn’t think that I would kill him.”
Song Lan winced, but he couldn’t exactly lie now. He certainly didn’t want to. “Maybe,” he hedged, and immediately felt guilty and amended, “it contradicts what he’d said to me. Or,” he amended again, “if not you, then me.”
“Oh,” Xingchen said, and Song Lan could hear the hurt in it and was suddenly, semi-irrationally angry with Xue Yang again. Xingchen rallied, though, and just turned his head and pressed a kiss into Xue Yang’s hair. Unhappily, he added, “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“Xingchen,” Song Lan said, pained, but Xingchen interrupted and said, “so you’d discussed it?”
“Yes,” Song Lan said after a pause, reluctantly. “It…came up. I recommended he tell you, but he was...reluctant.”
I’m not Zichen.
“I imagine so,” Xingchen said softly. Even more unhappily. “I tried - I tried to make it clear, that I wouldn’t…”
“You did,” Song Lan said, trying to soothe.
“It wasn’t enough.”
“It probably never would have been,” Song Lan said after a brief pause. “Xue Yang’s just...not built that way, maybe.” Xingchen said nothing, and Song Lan said, “he trusts you more than me,” and tried very hard to keep it from sounding self-pitying. It wasn’t meant to be. It was just true, and that was fine.
“I’ve had longer,” Xingchen said.
“Hm,” Song Lan said. He wasn’t sure it mattered. Xue Yang didn’t even seem to realize that anything about their relationship had materially changed. Somehow Song Lan seemed to be locked into his head as a potential threat and no matter how much he behaved as though it was otherwise, when it came down to it…
“Zichen?” Xingchen said. He sounded uncertain.
“Nothing,” he said. “It’s all right. You did everything you could, and it worked out, didn’t it?”
“I’m not going to leave you,” Xingchen said abruptly, and with sudden urgency. “You know that, don’t you, Zichen? I wouldn’t...not unless you asked me to.”
Song Lan’s throat closed and he swallowed hard to clear it. “I know,” he said, and he had known but something still released in his chest a little hearing Xingchen say it. “And I won’t ask.”
Xingchen’s relieved sigh hurt a little to hear.
“Zichen…”
“I know,” Song Lan said again, and Xingchen smiled, just a little, even if it faded quickly. Song Lan leaned over to give him a brief, dry kiss on his forehead. Song Lan glanced at Xue Yang, a little surprised to see that he still hadn’t stirred.
“I don’t think Chengmei is going anywhere either,” Xingchen said. Song Lan winced.
“No,” he said. “Especially not because if he tried, I’d drag him back here by the collar and you could make that disappointed face that always gets him to cave.”
Xingchen frowned slightly. “What disappointed face?”
“Never mind,” Song Lan said, because if Xingchen didn’t know he wasn’t going to help, not when Xue Yang wasn’t the only one it worked on. Xingchen frowned at him a little more deeply but after a moment seemed to let it go.
“He is very fond of you, you know,” Xingchen said quietly. Song Lan huffed out a breath.
“Whether he knows it or not, apparently,” Song Lan murmured, and Xingchen let out a quiet little laugh, even if Song Lan hadn’t entirely meant it as a joke. He glanced at Xue Yang and realized that he could see just a sliver of his eye, barely open. He was still and breathing steadily, but he was awake.
He wondered for how long, and considered saying something only to glance away, hoping Xue Yang thought he hadn’t noticed.
“I didn’t understand,” he said. “Not at first. What you saw in him. Why you would ever…” He could see Xingchen tensing, and hurried forward. “That’s changed. It happened to me too, after all.”
Xingchen’s smile was soft and warm. “I know,” he said. “I noticed.”
“At least one of you did,” Song Lan said, injecting some ruefulness into his voice, and that made Xingchen laugh, too.
When Song Lan glanced over at Xue Yang, his eye was closed again. There, he thought. Something for you to think about.
He settled back down and closed his eyes, drawing a little closer to Xingchen and letting himself drift.
When he fell back asleep, eventually, if he had any other dreams, he didn’t remember them. The next morning Song Lan woke up first. He slipped carefully out of bed, put on his outer robe, and went outside to watch the sun rise.