Work Text:
Jiang Cheng should had know, should had know that time and love could not always heal all; that suffering and hatred and grief could not wiped away by soft words and touches and kisses; that nightmares would come back the moment he lowered his guard, that even with so much happiness sometimes it still wasn't enough.
Jiang Cheng inhaled but he couldn't breathe. His eyes opened wide but all he could see was the bloody-red eyes of the darkness around him. He tried to speak, to scream, even to fucking cry but all the sound stuck inside his throat, pinning his chest down to bed in its painful grip. Jiang Cheng tried to focus his eyes then on a point just above his head as usual but the sudden realization after that made his heart stopped.
It was not the lotus pattern on his room's ceiling. Where was he? Why was he not in Lotus Pier? Did the Wen get him? The pounding on Jiang Cheng's head got louder every passing seconds. He needed to go. Lotus Pier was burning and jiejie's son, his only month old nephew... Those red eyes still looking down at him and now they were moving closer, like a fire burning on the shallow hole inside his chest and he was drowning and he couldn't breathe, he couldn't breathe and he was dyin...
"...yin...anyin...A-CHENG!!"
Jiang Cheng gasped out loud and his whole body shuddered so violent that he felt like he was falling down again. But a pair of strong arms grasped at his head and back, and pulled him into an impossible tight embrace. There were words being spoke near his ear but for a long while Jiang Cheng couldn't understand any of them.
"You are safe," The voice said. "You are here. I am here." Soft lips pressed on his sweaty forehead. "I got you. I got you."
Jiang Cheng pressed his face deeper into a wide shoulder while he shakily let out a broken sob and wet gasp, hands clung tight on the arms around him, desperately tried to stay afloat.
"I got you," Lan Huan kissed the single tear on his cheek. "I got you." Lan Huan pulled him closer until he was sitting on Lan Huan's lap, his face on the place between the other man's neck and shoulder where he could smell the other's familiar scent. "I got you." Lan Huan quietly talked into his hair, hugged him tighter until Jiang Cheng wasn't sure if the sound he heard was his or Lan Huan's heart beat.
Jiang Cheng closed his eyes and let himself cried one more. Now he had know time and love couldn't heal all, and the pain on his heart might never go away. But at this very moment, between the arms of the person he loved and loved him back, he felt the open wound closed a little. And that, right now, was enough. Was enough.