Work Text:
“You gonna take that?”
“What?” Zhongli looks up from his legal pad to find that all eyes in the conference room are on him. His phone had been buzzing incessantly in his pocket for the past five minutes, and he’d been discreetly checking it under the table and declining the calls, which all seem to be coming from a number he doesn’t recognize. Or not so discreetly, apparently, given that Ningguang is now eyeing him with a sharp look and a raised eyebrow.
“My apologies. It’s probably nothing.” Zhongli doesn’t like departmental meetings any more than the next guy, but these few pockets of time are his one chance to impress, and Zhongli is still fresh out of college and willing to take any chance he can get.
“I’m so sorry. I’ll—“ As if on cue, the screen lights up again, and Zhongli swears that if it’s just some persistent telemarketer, which it almost certainly is, he’s going to throttle someone right there.
“Do you wanna step outside and get that?” Ningguang asks, in a voice that suggests it isn’t really a question.
“Yes. I’ll be quick. I’m so sorry, again.” He awkwardly squeezes past the other chairs around the table as he ducks into the hallway, where he jabs at his phone screen irritably. “Hello?”
“Hi.” The voice on the other end is a woman’s he doesn’t recognize, brisk and professional. “I’m looking for Zhongli?”
“Yes, that’s me,” Zhongli confirms. “Listen, this is not a good time. Can I—”
The woman continues, ignoring his protests. “I’m calling from Mondstadt General Hospital. You’re listed as the emergency contact for…”
There’s the shuffling of papers on the other end. Zhongli frowns, annoyance quickly giving way to concern. Hospital? He hasn’t had any recent visitations or tests, and he has no family in the area, so what could…?
“For a mister… Venti—”
“Venti?!” Zhongli cuts her off, much louder than he intended. But nothing ever went the way he intended, did it, especially when Venti was part of the picture.
It has been nearly two and a half years since Zhongli has heard that name. It has been two years, four months, three weeks, and five days, to be specific, since the exact moment that Venti walked out of his life and left Zhongli still standing right where he was and wondering if it ever was meant to be in the first place.
It has been exactly that many days of driving to his grueling job and coming home to his cramped apartment where he sometimes lets himself believe that the sheets still smell of Venti’s hair, something crisp and novel like youth, like the taste of being twenty and stupid and not knowing where life would take them.
It has been two and a half years, and Zhongli has new friends and a new diploma and a new job and a new car and a new haircut and a new everything, and he’s over it.
He’s over it. He really, really is.
He swivels quickly to peer through the glass doors into the conference room, where a few of his colleagues seem to have noticed his outburst and are giving him concerned glances. He turns back around, covering the speaker of the phone with one hand.
“My apologies. What…?”
“He was brought in an hour ago after he collapsed,” the woman tells him, and Zhongli feels his heart leap into his throat. “I don’t want to alarm you. He’ll most likely be completely fine. But we’ll be running some blood tests just to be sure.”
Zhongli nods slowly. His mouth is completely dry, and he doesn’t think he could speak if he tried.
The voice on the other end of the line continues. “Are you able to come down to the hospital?”
Zhongli looks back through the glass doors. Ningguang is still facing the projector screen, but she turns her head just slightly and meets his gaze. She frowns at him.
Zhongli swallows hard. He hasn’t had a chance to present his work yet this meeting, and he hasn’t been this confident since he first set foot in this company building. No, he’s more than confident. He has been preparing this presentation for weeks, and it is the best work he’s ever done.
But Ningguang doesn’t reschedule. She has an agenda metered down to the minute, and it is an absolute fact that if he walks out now, there won’t be time for him again in weeks.
“Sir?” the woman asks. “Are you able to come?”
“Yes,” Zhongli says, picking up his bag. “Yes. I’m on my way.”
Zhongli remembers exactly how this happened.
It was a Friday evening, over a year into their relationship, because Zhongli was already in the habit of waiting in the library after his classes until Venti was off work, and Venti was already in the habit of following Zhongli home and sitting in every single spot in Zhongli’s room. Zhongli still remembers the way Venti sat on the back of his couch instead of on the seat, legs tucked into his chest and laptop balanced on his kneecaps.
“Are we going out for dinner, or are you going to sit there curled up like a shrimp all night?” Zhongli had said.
“Hang on, I have to fill out these stupid forms, and my laptop isn’t cooperating,” Venti muttered in response, vehemently attacking his trackpad with all the intensity of someone fighting against technology in the face of a deadline. “I was supposed to do these months ago, and the lady at the health center said she’d have my head if I don’t upload them today.”
“Maybe this wouldn’t be a problem if you paid attention to when things are due.”
Venti ignored him. “I have to list an emergency contact? Can’t I just put myself?”
“No, because when you inevitably end up in the emergency room with alcohol poisoning,” Zhongli said, “you’re not going to be able to bail yourself out of jail for the stupid stunts you pulled.”
“Oh, huh. Fair point. Guess it probably shouldn’t be my parents, then. Not gonna want that lecture.” Venti deliberated for a second and then said, “Okay. I’m putting you.”
“What?”
“Why not?” Venti tilted his head. “I trust you.”
“To get you out of jail? Because I’m telling you now, if you break the law, I’m not—”
“No, idiot,” Venti said, lightly shoving Zhongli’s shoulder. “To show up if something happens to me.”
Zhongli doesn’t remember what he said next. But he remembers the way Venti’s voice pitched high as he began cussing at his laptop as if that would make it work faster, the way his hair fell into his face when he laughed. He remembers the light painting a shape of the both of them in the shadows stretching long across the carpeted floor.
And he remembers, in fragments, dinner, a memory from that night or maybe some other night, or maybe not a memory at all, but some amalgamation of lost pieces and things that never happened: the diner, neon lights, the smell of grease and ice cream; Venti’s hands on his cheek and on his hair and on his lips, like there was no tomorrow.
Zhongli doesn’t like hospitals.
Who does? There is something discomforting about the sterility of it all, the scent of unfamiliarity and something chemical, and the anxiety he’d managed to keep at bay during his drive hits him full-force alongside the blasting air conditioner the second he steps onto the premises.
A receptionist confirms his name, phone number, and date of birth, before leading him down a long and winding hallway. She tells Zhongli, “Right in here,” and pushes open the door.
It has been two years and whatever whatever days since Zhongli has seen Venti, and it may as well not have been, because Venti looks exactly the same. Well, excepting the dull-patterned hospital gown and the few tubes strapped to his arm. And how weary he looks, leaning back into the hospital bed in a sort of half-sitting, half-reclining position, face pale and colorless as a thin sheet of paper.
It’s not as though Zhongli has never seen him like this before: he couldn’t count the number of times he’d held Venti’s hair back as he puked or dragged him to bed after several vicious all-nighters. But there is something about the coldness in the air and the low humming of the machines that makes fear seize in his heart, and he remembers that all of this is new, all of this is unfamiliar.
Still. He can’t ignore the way Venti looks every bit the way Zhongli remembers him: disheveled braids, slouched shoulders, his stupid fucking earring—he’s still wearing that?—and the smile he offers Zhongli as he enters, sheepish like a child caught with their hand in the candy jar.
“Well, this is awkward,” Venti says, looking up to reveal dark circles under his eyes. But the gaze he meets Zhongli’s with is very much full of levity, like he wasn’t currently bedridden and exhausted.
Zhongli purses his lips, searching for something to say.
It’s almost instinctive, the way he wants to rush to his side, pull his arm around Venti’s shoulders and let all of it spill out of him, the anger that gives way to fear that gives way to affection, the what were you thinking? and the do you know how much you scared me? and the million and one things he wasn’t brave enough to say, not before, not now, not ever.
This, he thinks, is the way it could have been back before: Zhongli would put his hand in Venti’s hair and smooth out the bumps of messy knots; he’d sit by the edge of the hospital bed and say, “Oh god, what happened?”
And Venti would tuck his face against Zhongli’s collar, his voice breathing across his neck like wind against earth, and whisper, “It’s fine, I’m fine, we’re fine.”
Only, none of that ever happened. And that’s not the kind of people they are now.
So instead, Zhongli says stiffly, by way of greeting, “I’m still your emergency contact?”
“You sure are,” Venti grins, like it’s nothing. “You really think someone like me keeps this shit updated? I turned that form in and wiped it from my memory.”
Of course. Of course he forgot to change it, because Venti has always been this way, and Zhongli wants to kick himself for thinking even for a second that it might have been something else.
“Oh,” he says.
Venti grows quiet. “Sorry for the trouble,” he says after a short pause. “I honestly totally forgot, so… thanks for going out of your way. It’s really nothing.”
It’s not nothing, but okay.
“I came as soon as I heard.”
“You really didn’t have to,” Venti says, bringing his arms up by his face and looking like any physical movement is costing him a great amount of energy.
“They said you collapsed,” Zhongli continues, suppressing the nauseating feeling clawing up his chest. “What did you do?”
“Um.” Venti scratches the back of his head awkwardly. “Low blood sugar, sleep deprivation, dehydration…? I’d rather not have gone to the hospital, but I passed out and someone at the cafe called an ambulance, so. Here we are.”
Zhongli blinks. Something has lodged itself in an uncomfortable spot in his throat, something like guilt, guilt that he wasn’t here—but why would he have been? He’s not part of Venti’s life anymore, and the thought sends a pang through his chest: his presence here is an accident.
He’s not supposed to dote on Venti like this, not anymore. He’s not supposed to fuss over him, or know intimately of his struggles.
He’s not supposed to worry about him, not like this. Not in a way that consumes him.
He’s not supposed to, but he does.
“Haven’t you been eating or sleeping enough?”
“It’s finals week, so, you know. Haven’t really had the time.”
Zhongli frowns. This all seems very out of character for the man he remembers. “And since when did you care this much about school?”
Venti laughs drily. “Since I’ve been in college for six years and counting and still haven’t completed my four-year degree.” He shakes his head sullenly, changing the subject. “Look at you, though. Big business man now, huh?”
“Hardly,” Zhongli responds.
“I mean, you sure look the part,” Venti says, eyeing Zhongli up and down, and Zhongli becomes suddenly hyper-aware of the way his suit jacket falls just a little bit loose on his shoulders, like it wasn’t really meant for him. “Where’d you end up?”
“...Insurance firm.”
“They paying you the big bucks?”
“Not quite, but it’s a good company and I’m hoping it’s a chance to—” He stops. Why are they talking about this? “Why are we talking about this? You—you passed out, got brought to the hospital in an ambulance—” He runs a hand over his face. “Are you—have you been doing okay lately?”
Venti seems to bristle at the question, like he mistakes Zhongli’s concern for pity. “I’m fine. And honestly, nothing’s really changed with me. No major life updates or anything. I’m still basically in the same spot I was two years ago. So I’d rather catch up with what’s going on with you,” he adds, voice softening. “We haven’t talked in a really long time.”
Zhongli knows it’s true, and he knows they’re both somewhat at fault for it. They’d ended their relationship on somewhat good terms, and Zhongli had promised that they would still be friends, but every time he pulled out his phone to call or text it felt impossible to even look at Venti’s name without letting the memories overwhelm him.
But what was that Venti said just now? No major life updates or… anything? Does that include…
“Hang on, so, you’re not… seeing… anyone?”
He regrets the question as soon as he says it. He’s not trying to look any more desperate than he’s sure he already does, but Venti always had a certain charm and a way with people that Zhongli could never in a million years emulate.
It wasn’t rare that he’d meet Venti at the cafe where he worked to find a stack of napkins with phone numbers scrawled on them because of course, Venti’s a fucking catch, he always was, and he always figured it was only a matter of time before Venti realized how much better he could do than Zhongli, who owned a total of like three shirts in college and whose idea of fun is making spreadsheets.
That didn’t exactly make it hurt any less when he did. But that’s neither here nor there.
Zhongli backpedals rapidly. “What I mean is, I wouldn’t want to intrude in place of your… significant someone. If there’s someone.”
Venti laughs again, lightly this time, like it’s a ridiculous question and not actually a perfectly reasonable assumption for someone who went to as many parties as Venti did back in the day. “Oh, no, I’m not. Not since we were a thing, actually.”
This gives him pause, because he always assumed that Venti’s first course of action post-breakup would have been moving on to someone sexier and funnier and with better hair, and that’s a major factor in why he never really tried to keep up with Venti’s life even from afar, despite how easy it would’ve been given Venti’s obsession with oversharing on social media. No matter how tempting it became, especially on drunken and lonely nights, to scroll months back into Venti’s Instagram feed, he always managed to stay away, because the thought of seeing Venti, maybe with his arm around someone, or his head resting on someone’s shoulder, or his fingers casually intertwined with another’s—the reality of that likelihood always pulled him back.
At Zhongli’s expression, which must betray no small amount of surprise, Venti goes on. “Love life’s been kind of on the back burner, lately, actually. I’ve been focusing on trying to graduate, and get a better job, and… and stuff. Like, I still go out, but, I don’t know, I haven’t really clicked with anyone, so… it’s like… yeah.” He shrugs. “You?”
“Me?” Zhongli jolts, pointing at himself cautiously. “Oh, no, no. I’m… not.”
“…Right.”
They settle into a deeply uncomfortable silence, and Zhongli hates himself for broaching the topic in the first place. Thankfully, after only about a solid minute of awkwardly staring at each other, they’re saved by the sound of footsteps approaching.
A nurse in blue scrubs and a high ponytail of long, blonde hair enters, clipboard in hand. She offers both of them a tight-lipped smile and turns to check some of the machines by Venti’s bedside.
“Well, the good news is, it’s nothing serious,” she says, and Zhongli nods, relief flooding his body. It’s not any new information, not exactly, but hearing her say it in that tone of voice, steady and matter-of-factly, is enough to make him aware of the tension that had been building in his shoulders. “Your heart behavior is normal, and your blood tests don’t show any long-term cause for concern.”
She turns to Venti. “Still, this is something to be taken seriously. When’s the last time you had a meal?”
“Um…” Venti tilts his head. “Does coffee count?”
“No.”
“Then… I’d say… Well, yesterday I was gonna go to the dining hall, but then I got a text on the way and remembered something I had to do so I don’t think I ended up going… Um, you know, this is a good question, actually.”
“If you don’t remember, that’s a problem,” the nurse sighs. “Going without food for a long time can be very dangerous, especially if you’re working long hours or otherwise physically exerting yourself. As I’m sure you’ve discovered.”
“Yeah, I’ve just been—I just forgot. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize to me. Just take better care of yourself.” She passes the clipboard to Venti. “Once you sign, you’re clear to go if you feel better. But please make sure you get food and rest as soon as possible.”
“I will,” Venti says.
The nurse raises an eyebrow at him, but nods. “Make sure he does,” she says to Zhongli.
Zhongli startles. Knowing that Venti is fine, is it really his place to stick around? Knowing that the longer he hovers as a meteor in Venti’s orbit, the less time there is before the inevitable crash?
But he looks at the way Venti’s frame looks smaller in the hospital bed, the way the lines of his smile betray something lost and vulnerable. And he knows somehow without fail, Zhongli will always come back to him every single time.
“Okay,” he says. “I will.”
Zhongli buys orange juice and a dry tuna sandwich from the hospital canteen, just to make sure Venti gets some carbs and sugar in his system as soon as possible, and he personally watches to make sure he finishes every bite.
Venti rolls his eyes and complains the whole time, but is much brighter after he’s eaten, so it’s worth it.
“So, thanks for coming,” Venti says when he’s done, holding up his hands as though to prove that he’s eaten everything. “You totally didn’t have to. But I’m glad you did.”
“I mean, I get a call that you’re in the hospital, of course I—“ Zhongli stops, taking a breath. “Of course I panic.”
“Maybe putting you as my emergency contact was a bad idea,” Venti teases. “You worry too much.”
“And maybe you need someone to worry about you,” Zhongli says, crossing his arms, “if you’re going to do things like forget to eat.” He sighs, trying to keep his composure, but it is becoming increasingly hard to stay in control of his emotions, not when Venti is an arm’s length away, perched on a hospital bench and smiling at him like none of this is a big deal, like his health and his life and his feelings haven’t always been the most important thing to Zhongli, always.
“Do you want me to drive you home?” Zhongli asks, quietly.
“Um.” The look Venti gives him is uncharacteristically shy. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.”
Zhongli spends the drive staring intently at the road with his hands in a death grip on the steering wheel. Venti makes a few comments about how fancy Zhongli’s car is, running his fingers across the furnished leather interior, then spends the rest of the time with his head leaned up against the window in silence.
Venti still lives in university housing, and Zhongli follows him into the room, picking his way through the messy piles of books and clothes strewn on the floor.
“Well,” Venti sighs, half-heartedly picking up a few wrinkled T-shirts and tossing them in a pile on the bed, “I’d give you the tour, but it’s one room. So. Thanks again, and I’ll see you around, I suppose.”
Zhongli nods. It’s a lie, probably, he knows.
“Look, Venti,” he says, steeling himself, “we never really got to talk about how things… ended. Between us.”
Venti turns slowly. “No, I guess we didn’t.”
“If I walk out of here now, will we ever talk about it?”
Venti stares at him for a few seconds, then sits at the corner of the bed, exhaling noisily. “Okay. Fine. You wanna talk about it? We can talk about it. It was for the best. We were going in different directions, and…”
“That’s what you said before, too,” Zhongli says cautiously. “But what do you mean by that?”
“I mean exactly what I mean! I’m me,” he says, gesturing at himself, “and you’re… you know!”
“I don’t know,” Zhongli exclaims, exasperated, “I don’t know, Venti, because you keep telling me it’s not right but you barely give me so much as an answer.” And he thinks of every night he spent alone with only the pulsating light of his work laptop to keep him company, asking himself just where the hell he went wrong, telling himself over and over every little thing he would’ve done different if he had the chance, picking apart every flaw in his person with immense scrutiny because any one of those could have been the reason, the reason he drove Venti away.
But Venti just rolls his eyes and says, “You’re—you know—You! You’re smart! You’re responsible! You’re the kind of person someone should put as their emergency contact because you actually answer your phone! And you have a job and a car and an apartment and—and you’ve made everyone so proud, and you’ve made all the right choices in life, and you’re always going to make all the right choices, except for—”
“Except for what?”
Venti leaps up from the bed in a sudden movement, throwing his arms out as he shouts, “Except for wasting five years tying yourself down to a deadweight dumbfuck loser who’s about to go into his seventh year of a four-year degree, who can’t even get his life together without fucking forgetting to—eat? Who can’t even do something as simple as that, who’s always going to need someone to pick up the pieces, and you—I can’t keep asking you to do that for me. And I have been trying to be better, I’m trying to care more about school and life and all of this, I’m trying to be the kind of person that could be good for you, but it’s just not in me, okay? I’m always going to be the idiot who doesn’t know what he wants and doesn’t know how to get it, who burdens everyone around him with his problems, even two whole ass years later—“
Zhongli stares at him. Is that why? Why he’s been working himself to the bone with exhaustion, why he’s been running himself ragged because he won’t stop to breathe until he’s fucking unconscious in a hospital bed—for him?
For him?
“You deserve someone who makes you better,” Venti declares insistently, voice trembling on the last syllable, “not someone who drags you down. That’s all.”
He stops. The room is silent, save for the low thrum of the metro roaring past outside the window, and the quaking rising in Zhongli’s ears that might be the audible vestiges of two and a half years of regret.
“Is that what you wanted to hear?” Venti says, quietly.
Zhongli can’t believe how stupid he is. “I can’t believe how stupid you are,” he grits out.
“Thank you! Finally, you’re getting it. We’re done here, then,” Venti grumbles, pushing past him.
Zhongli grabs his arm. “No, we are not. Because here is what you don’t understand: you are not the only person here that gets to make a choice. And maybe I chose you,” he manages, straining his voice to keep it from cracking, “because I want you. Maybe I chose to take care of you, to worry about you, to help you—because I want to. And you could do well to take your head out of your own ass long enough to see that I have agency, too, and I could have left long ago if I wanted. But I chose to stay, because I wanted you in my life. I still do.”
“You sure about that?” Venti laughs roughly. “Look how far you’ve gotten without me.”
Zhongli wants to laugh, too, because this is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous. “So do you think I’ve been happier, these last two years? Since you left?”
“I mean, it sure looks like it,” Venti says shortly.
“Well, open your fucking eyes!” Zhongli roars. “Of course not! I’ve been drowning myself in a job I hate and surrounding myself with coworkers who couldn’t care less if I sink or swim, and all I do is think about you all the damn time, because, as it turns out, I still—”
—love you, he thinks, heart hammering in his throat. “Because I don’t know who I am without you. Okay?”
Venti turns abruptly, breaking eye contact, and the sudden movement grounds him back in reality, back where they are, and Zhongli reminds himself that this is not the right place or the right time or the right anything, but his heart his swelling in his chest because he thinks if he doesn’t say it right now he’s never going to get another chance, and he’s never going to forgive himself.
“And if you’re happier now, better off without me, that’s fine,” he announces, like there’s a whole world listening. “I’m not going to beg you to take me back. But please don’t give me this bullshit about how you’re dragging me down, because you have always been good enough for me, you have always been more than good enough for me, and I never want you to change a thing about yourself because it’s you, Venti. You. You have always been the unfathomably lucky thing that I didn’t dare believe I deserved to have in my life, so if you don’t want to be with me, that’s fine. I’ll deal with it. I’ll get over it.” He won’t, but that’s not the point. “But don’t you dare come in here and tell me that this was all for my benefit, because you have no idea what you put me through—”
And he has to stop, because Venti’s lips are on his.
It’s so easy, so unspeakably easy, to fall back into him, into the way the curves of their bodies fit in together, into the warmth of his lips and the strength of his embrace and the scent that is memory, and passion, and love, and Venti, and Venti, and Venti.
“You kissed me,” Zhongli says when they part, bringing a finger to his lips as though a ghost had landed there.
“Yeah,” Venti says simply, as if it’s only right. “Yeah, I did.”
Zhongli meant to leave. Really. He meant to go back to his car and send a slew of emails apologizing profusely for his absence, begging on his knees for the department to reschedule.
Instead, he spent a half hour on Venti’s shitty dorm mattress that was never meant to hold two people, sloppily making out like a teenager.
As it turns out, nothing’s really changed.
Venti kicks his leg up onto Zhongli’s lap, his knee hitting Zhongli painfully in the chin. “Hey, you still got it, huh?”
Zhongli takes the leg in one hand and gently pushes him back onto the bed. “Okay, that’s enough. You need to sleep.”
Venti whines and complains, but ultimately lets Zhongli pull the blankets over him (“When was the last time you washed these?” “You… don’t want to know.”) and tuck a pillow under his head, taking a minute to undo his braids and smooth out the hair that spills onto the wrinkled sheets.
Venti meets Zhongli’s eyes briefly, and Zhongli thinks something burns in the tight space between them. “Stay?”
“Does this mean you love me again?” Zhongli asks.
Venti laughs, his fingers tracing a thin line from Zhongli’s forehead down to his neck and to his chest, stopping and hovering somewhere around his heart.
“Oh, come on,” he says. “Do you really think I stopped?”