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"What if he came out, but you died?!"
Pangzi's words were ringing in his ears. Wu Xie doesn't know how long he's been in the cage anymore. He doesn't know why it's Pangzi's words that are being repeated over and over in his mind, when he can barely manage to open his eyes. The only thing he can really feel are his own parched lips. There is a dull thud thrumming at the back of his head, he struggled to breathe. He tries to grab onto the wooden bars of his prison, but even this little movement costs him much more than just the last time he tried to do it. His fingers never felt this weak before, like they're numb, like he can't move. For a brief second, Wu Xie panics. What if nobody comes to save him? The little exertion cost him and a fleeting thought passes his mind, that perhaps this is the best outcome, but then suddenly blurry images of a fringe, a familiar face, floats into his vision.
No, he can't die, not like this, not when the last time they parted ways they had…
Wu Xie forces some strength from his frozen limbs and pulls himself up just enough to peak between the bars.
"Is there anyone there? Water! I need water!"
It seems like he's shouting into the void, as nothing but the crackling of fire answers him. The little strength he gathered ebbed out of him, like the way the water tides rolls out. He had passed out again.
The next time Wu Xie stirs, it's to the sounds of metal clanking, a dull thump and someone screaming in pain. A rush of adrenalin floods him and he jolts into a somewhat awake state.
"Xiao-ge!" he screams, but immediately collapses onto the wooden floor.
Within seconds, Wu Xie can feel the strong arms, the arms that have saved him countless times already, and he can feel Xiao-ge pulling him close. Then they're moving, and it's like a deja vu to the first time they were in a tomb, when he had fainted down the tree and woke up to Meng Youping cradling him.
When they are back on the ground, he can feel something cold being pressed against his lips.
Oh! It's water.
He gulps as much as he can, and he finds some strength to slowly open his eyes.
"Xiao-ge," he whispers, and is awarded with the smallest change of features on the man's face.
It's as if he's saying: "Yes, it is me."
Wu Xie smiles back. Xiao-ge is here, Xiao-ge is alive. That's good, that means he can…
"Wu Xie, Wu Xie!"
Everything fades to black-
***
Wu Xie rubs open his eyes and sits up. He checks himself for injuries and discovers that he has none. He doesn’t even feel the pain anymore. Is he dead? Is this heaven? He looks around and discovers he’s sitting on a patch of grass in a park.
He also finds that a woman is sitting next to him, and after the initial startlement, he calms as he recognizes her, even though it’s been years.
“Where am I?” he asks the woman.
“It doesn’t matter, the important question is, why are you here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not really.”
They’re quiet for a few minutes, just sit there shoulder by shoulder, observing what’s going on. Wu Xie notices that they seem to be floating above the world, it’s like he’s looking at himself lying motionless in his own bed. He’s not surprised at all at the figure to his right, Pangzi, has fallen asleep. He’s more surprised that there’s a figure to his left. The man has not left his side for the entire time Wu Xie’s followed him with his eyes, and something in his heart clenches.
“Is he the one you like?”
Wu Xie looks down at his hands, but says nothing. A mother always knows anyway. He realises he is right when he lifts his head back and sees the little smile at the corner of her mouth.
“Wouldn’t you want to tell him your feelings?”
“Mhm.”
“Tell him that you want to hold him close?”
“Yes.”
“How about kissing him?”
“Of course,” Wu Xie replies without missing a beat.
She nudges him a little. “Perhaps even have sex?”
Wu Xie’s eyes widen as he stares at her, silently mouthing, “Mom!”
She only smiles and says: “Then why don’t you?”
“It’s…”
What could Wu Xie tell her? That he’s been searching for his third uncle for years, that they have responsibilities ? That there are things more important than a romance? He couldn’t possibly tell her the truth could he, that he’s scared ?
“Complicated,” he breathes out.
She laughs louder. Ruffles his hair as she says, “love is simple you silly. What is it that you always say? You don’t know until you’ve tried? Have you tried?”
Wu Xie looks at her, eyes wide. How did she know this? She is smiling, and then she’s fading away. He tries to grab on to her, but his hands only catch air.
“Mom!” Wu Xie screams and jolts up, suddenly wide awake.
“Wu Xie,” Xiao-ge was by his side in an instant, catching his back as he fell so he doesn’t hit his head at the metal rods of his bed.
That slight throbbing at the back of his head is still there, but Wu Xie’s felt worse. The other man carefully adjusts his pillows so he can sit halfway up in the bed, and all Wu Xie hears is the loud thumping of his heart. Wu Xie looks up to find his eyes and for a second, it’s as if he doesn’t know what to do, but then a small sigh (Wu Xie only notices because he’s had years to learn the man’s micro expressions) and he seem to decide to sit down at the edges of the bed, face to face with Wu Xie.
Wu Xie keeps the gaze.
“Meng Youping,” he says softly.
Uncharacteristically, the man replies without missing a beat. “Did you have a nightmare?”
Okay, not what Wu Xie expected, and he knows Xiao-ge wouldn’t laugh at him for it. Still, it suddenly feels like his cheeks are warmer, it feels like Xiao-ge was scrutinizing him, reading his mind and every thought he’s been trying to hide. He lowers his gaze.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“You don’t know until you try.”
He inhales deeply, and then jumps.
“I dreamt about my mom. Meng Youping, she knows about you, about...” Wu Xie trails off again, but looks back up at the man next to him. Hoping that his eyes convey the rest of what he is supposed to say.
He is met with silence, and Wu Xie, never the one to hold back his feelings, somehow chokes on his words. He really wants to throw something, but as soon as he moves, he’s reminded of the pain that’s rolling off of him and he groans. Apparently, they come in waves.
“Sit still,” Xiao-ge commands him, a hand settling at his chest to push him back. The touch lingers longer than it’s technically necessary, since Wu Xie isn’t exactly in the state to trash about or protest, and he notices. There’s a brief silence, they look at each other and Wu Xie winces a bit internally when he feels like he’s in a scene in one of the many rom-coms he’s seen.
Somehow the hand at his chest is still where it has been since Xiao-ge used it to push him back, and the heat is now spreading through him. There was a moment where Wu Xie thinks Xiao-ge is leaning in, but then...
“Pangzi is out getting some food, he should be back soon,” he says as he removes the hand and the moment is gone.
“I’ll get you some painkillers.”
Wu Xie follows the man with his eyes as he gets up to move and for a moment, Wu Xie tenses; thinking he’ll leave again. He only relaxes when he hears shuffling in the kitchen, and not long after, Pangzi’s familiar voice and the occasional reply from Xiao-ge.
***
Xiao-ge refuses to let him eat for himself, insisting on spoon feeding him. Wu Xie tries to protest. He’s a grown up for Christ sake and it’s not like he’s broken any bones, but it’s like talking into the void and just as he is saying that, his body figured it should remind him of his pain. He curses the traitor. Xiao-ge says nothing, it’s as if that sting of pain says everything he needs to say, and Pangzi simply laughs.
In the end, he yields and allows Xiao-ge to feed him.
Pangzi can’t seem to stop laughing. He’s pointing at them with his own pair of chopsticks, and rambles: “Xiao-ge, you really are treating him like a princess or wifey or something. If A-Ning sees this, she’d totally be kicking your ass for stealing her husband like this!”
Obviously feeling good about himself, he keeps laughing.
Wu Xie glares at him to no use, it’s only when Xiao-ge looks at him and says curtly: “don’t talk nonsense,” that Pangzi finally takes the cue.
He sniggers a little more before he says; “okay okay, let’s talk about what happened.”
It isn’t until now Wu Xie realises that he doesn’t actually know what happened after Xiao-ge saved him from the cage.
Wu Xie listens with half an ear, as he was acutely aware of the focused look on Xiao-ge. A-Ning’s people had of course chased after them. Wu Xie being unconscious made their flight more complicated, but Xiao-ge had booked a private jet and they had used unmarked cars to fool their chasers. When Pangzi said “private jet”, Wu Xie looked at Xiao-ge, not really knowing how to feel about it. On one hand, he knows Xiao-ge can afford it, he is head of the Zhang family after all. On the other hand, his heart skipped a beat at that because he knows he’s the reason Xiao-ge wasted so much money. He feels a little bit guilty, but there’s not a single trace of any emotions on the other man. He just blows a couple times on the next spoonful of food to make sure it isn’t too hot before feeding it to Wu Xie, and that’s that.
He also makes sure Wu Xie eats all of his portion. Wu Xie fills full, almost too full, but he knows it’s no use to object. When they’ve done eating and Xiao-ge shuffled to the kitchen to clean up, Pangzi settles in an extra chair next to his bed, pulling out his phone.
“Tianzhen ah, what’s going on with you and Xiao-ge?”
Wu Xie looks at Pangzi, who seems to be immersed in his game, but Wu Xie also knows that that doesn’t mean he isn’t paying attention. He sighs and pretends he doesn’t understand. It’s easier than saying the truth at least.
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean, I’ve seen the ways you two look at each other, Xiao-ge is only like this with you, and the ways your eyes lit up when you look at him. It really wants to make me puke watching you lovebirds, haha. Do you really think, you can fool me, have you forgotten, I’m Pang-ye?”
Wu Xie smiles. No, he hasn’t forgotten who Pangzi is.
"To tell you the truth, ah Pangzi, I feel like I lost something, that I can’t get back. But it feels like it’s over before it ever even began.”
“Ah, why are you crouching down, you!” Pangzi mumbles as he continues to play the game, and Wu Xie feels slightly annoyed. It is Pangzi who forces the issue after all.
“Pangzi, are you even listening?”
“Of course I am, but what did you lose, and how can something be over even before it began?”
The man isn’t even looking up from his screen.
“What are you even talking about?”
“The feelings you have for Xiao-ge,” Pangzi starts, looking very much like a teacher growing increasingly impatient with a student who just won’t get it, as he eventually decides to toss his phone aside to one corner of his chair, and looks at Wu Xie. He’s just about to continue when there’s a sound by the door, and they both look up to see Xiao-ge standing there, with a glass of water in one hand, and what Wu Xie suspects are his painkillers in the other.
“What feelings?” he says, and instantly Wu Xie feels like a child getting caught by a parent because they were doing something naughty. It seems as Pangzi is feeling the same way, as he has never seen the man get up so fast, he clumsily reaches out for the phone that’s slid to the back of the chair and tries to keep himself balanced by putting one foot before another.
“I’ll let you two talk, you two have a nice talk,” he mutters with a sheepish look on his face as he quickly steps out of the room.
Wu Xie looks at Xiao-ge who’s looking at Pangzi and then, it’s just two of them in the room and the elephant in the room is threatening to swallow up all the air. It feels like he can’t breathe. Xiao-ge is frozen still by the door for a few seconds, but his eyes never leave Wu Xie and Wu Xie wishes he could walk over to him. The low hum of pain reminds him that he can’t move much still and something must have shown on his face because the next thing he knows, Xiao-ge is beside him, handing him the water and painkillers.
“I told you to sit still.”
“It’s not that bad, it comes in waves.” He tries to put up a face despite knowing that Xiao-ge would completely disregard anything he says about the pain.
So he swallows the medicine obediently and hands the empty glass back. Xiao-ge sets it down by the bedside table and sits down in the chair Pangzi just sat in. He folds his hands and closes his eyes for a second, supporting his head on them, and when Wu Xie looks at his features, Xiao-ge suddenly looks tired ? It feels like he’s deliberately putting some distance between them, and Wu Xie’s heart sinks a little. He shouldn’t have said anything.
“How much sleep have you been getting?”
Xiao-ge moves to look at him, and Wu Xie can tell he’s trying to contemplate how much half-truth he can get away with. Wu Xie stares back, he won’t let him get away with this.
It’s another couple of minutes, but Wu Xie can see it the moment Xiao-ge gives in.
“A couple of hours every night, at tops.”
“And how many nights has it been?”
“Four.”
“Meng Youping…” Wu Xie starts, but a lump is building and the rest of the words dry up on the way out.
“I’m fine.” Xiao-ge clearly left out the “don’t worry about me” , but Wu Xie still heard it and how can he not? What if something happened to Meng Youping, and it’s Wu Xie’s fault? What if, Xiao-ge never came out of the water tomb?
“No, you’re not. I’m not, we’re…”
The slightest jaw movement on Xiao-ge’s face caught Wu Xie off-guard for a second, but he’s done with not talking about it now so, almost out of spite, he finishes the sentence: “we’re not.”
Wu Xie stares at Xiao-ge, almost challenging him. To what, he doesn’t know, but it’s easier than to feel the thing that’s been building inside him. It’s like he’s back at the island beach they stranded on after the tomb, where the sea slowly built up a wave. A small tide rolling nice and easy at first, disappearing when it ebbed out, but over time the waves become bigger and hit harder, and Wu Xie is being pulled under that water, trying as long as he can not to open his mouth to inhale because he knows he’ll drown if he does.
He opens his mouth anyway.
“I was so worried when I didn’t see you after the water tomb, I thought… I thought that maybe you died down there, that I would never see you again, to tell you….that I, that I…”
He inhales sharply. Wu Xie knows logically, that he’s in his bed and not on the island where they were stranded, but this feels like drowning anyway.
Suddenly there’s an arm around his shoulders, and Wu Xie looks up to a pair of eyes staring right into his. When did he look away from Xiao-ge, Wu Xie thinks, and it takes a couple of seconds for him to register that Xiao-ge has settled himself right next to him in the bed. He is a little surprised, but he can’t deny he’s been craving this so he leans his head onto Xiao-ge’s shoulder anyway, tentatively. When there is no objection from the other man, Wu Xie relaxes into the embrace. He inhales Xiao-ge’s scent and it immediately calms his mind. He doesn’t feel like he’s drowning anymore, instead… Wu Xie noses the small patch of skin on Xiao-ge’s neck that’s not covered by the shirt collar, and he can swear he felt a small tremble from the other man.
A stab of hope, Wu Xie thinks, and then he asks: “Meng Youping, am I wrong to think there’s something more between us?”
The reply came quicker than Wu Xie expects.
“No.”
“Then why have we never…”
“Because you know what my responsibilities are, I know what your responsibilities are, it’s never going to be…”
“Never going to be what?” Wu Xie never thought there’d be a day he’d interrupt Meng Youping, but he guesses there’s a first time for everything.
“Xiao-ge, there will be enough things in this lifetime and next for us to regret, I don’t want us to wake up one day regretting what we haven’t done.”
He sees the flash of recognition in the man’s eyes.
“You know I can’t stay,” he says curtly, but this close, Wu Xie can feel his heartbeat, and he knows there is much more going on underneath the calm exterior.
“I know, but we can at least say proper goodbyes next time you’re taking off?”
Wu Xie knows it’s a futile request, like a child’s wish. If they’re in a tomb, if something happens and they have to bust out of one in haste, there will be no time for such, in the grand scheme of things, frivolous acts. Wu Xie knows, and Wu Xie knows that Xiao-ge knows that he knows. And yet, Wu Xie has always followed his heart, and his heart always wanted more.
So he tilts his head a little, fixing his eyes on Xiao-ge’s. As the painkillers are working their magic in his body, the pain isn’t so bad, and he decides to wrap his free arm around Xiao-ge’s neck, pulling their foreheads together. A little smirk forms on Wu Xie’s lips as he whispers, “Meng Youping ah, one more thing,” and the quizzical look that turns into a surprise on his face is absolutely beautiful when Wu Xie simply kisses him on his lips.
It takes a few seconds for Xiao-ge to answer, but finally he does and Wu Xie sinks further into it.
I feel like I lost something, he’d said to Pangzi. If only Pangzi understood what he means, that Wu Xie’s given away his heart, that he knows he will not get it back and that he’s perfectly fine with it, because the person he gave it to is Meng Youping.
When they finally break apart, Wu Xie sees a small smile on Xiao-ge’s face, and however cliché it sounds, Wu Xie feels like his heart is soaring. At the same time, Wu Xie can also feel his own confusion as Xiao-ge removes himself from the spot on the bed. Thankfully the confusion turns into something else, something new that’s settling in his stomach, when he sees that Xiao-ge is undressing.
The familiar dragon tattoo on his right shoulder is slowly unveiled, it’s been too long since Wu Xie’s seen it, he thinks.
He lets Xiao-ge fuss over him, to arrange his pillows, and then Xiao-ge himself crawls under the covers. He pushes a hand under Wu Xie’s neck, and he trails lazy lines on Wu Xie’s shoulder. Wu Xie sighs in contentment as he lets his own hand travel along the lines of the dragon.
Xiao-ge pulls him in. He plants a soft, short kiss on his forehead and smiles when Wu Xie instantly pouts, begging for more.
“Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up tomorrow.”
Wu Xie feels giddy when he says: “Promise?”
“Promise.”