Work Text:
"A-Cheng, I think we should have a baby.”
Jiang Cheng drops the dish that he's washing in the sink, and the hard, ceramic plate clatters against the metal rim as it slips deftly out of his fingers.
It's a harsh sound - surprised, even. But somehow Jiang Cheng doesn't think it's nearly dramatic enough for how hard his heart is pounding out of his chest right now.
“Um,” he replies, intelligently, as he shakes his hands to rid them of their soapy suds before he turns around and wipes them on his jeans. He looks at his husband, Lan Xichen, who's sitting at the kitchen island and petting their purring cat as if there's nothing wrong with this image at all (and this is ignoring the fact that the cat is definitely not allowed to be on the island like this).
"Ha ha?" He tries, but Lan Xichen just looks at him quizzically, tilting his head slightly to the side like Jiang Cheng is the one out of his mind right now.
He takes a breath through his nose, leaning back onto the counter and crossing his arms over his chest. He looks at his husband, his husband looks back, and it feels like some weird sort of stalemate if not for the fact that Jiang Cheng is pretty sure he's already lost.
"You know," he says slowly, trying again. "When I...said those things. Last night. It was a heat of the moment sort of thing. Dirty talk."
Lan Xichen smiles. "Oh, you mean when you begged me to bree-"
“Yes!" Jiang Cheng yelps, slapping his hands onto the kitchen island. The cat flicks his tail at him and glares with one eye lazily opened, but after a moment of tense silence he settles back onto his paws, rumbling resuming.
Jiang Cheng sighs, locking his arms out and leaning on to his hands so he’s towering over Lan Xichen. He looks straight into his husband’s eyes and tries to fight down the flush threatening to climb up his neck. “Why do you think we should have a baby?”
Lan Xichen, to his credit, has enough self preservation to dart his eyes away for a second before he responds. “Because I love you,” he says eventually, quietly, and his hands come up to cup Jiang Cheng’s face as he pulls him in for a quick kiss. “And I think you’d make a great father.”
Jiang Cheng is so surprised that he doesn’t protest when Lan Xichen leads him around the island. He doesn’t protest when Lan Xichen slots him between his legs, holds his hands in his and looks up at him with beseeching affection - compounded with some sort of witchcraft in those amber eyes of his.
“I saw how you were with Jin Ling, when he was first born. How you held him in your arms like you were so afraid to drop him, and how you looked at him like you’d rather die before you let anything happen to him.”
Jiang Cheng holds his breath, remembering the moment well. Jin Ling had felt so warm and fragile - he could hardly believe that something so small could possibly make him feel so full of love.
“Perhaps I’m a little greedy,” Lan Xichen continues, pulling Jiang Cheng in by his collar until his lips are but a whisper above his, “but I’d like to see that again, and I want to continue building our family. With you.”
He kisses him, and Jiang Cheng has no choice but to kiss back, overwhelmed as he is by his husband’s words. Now that the thought is in his mind, he can’t help but remember how Lan Xichen had looked, cradling Jin Ling in his gentle arms and with adoration in his gaze. He can’t help but imagine a future with him, with small hands held by each of theirs, bracketing the bright light of a young soul and figuring out this whole parenthood thing together .
“Will you think about it, my heart?” Lan Xichen asks, and Jiang Cheng doesn’t know when the cat had vacated the island, but he finds himself suddenly pushed on top of it. Warm fingers brush against the tops of his thighs, and he hooks his arms around his husband’s shoulders.
“Yeah...okay,” he whispers in response, and as he gets the lights kissed out of him he thinks that maybe he could think about it, as long as Lan Xichen was the one doing it with him.