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Scream my name like a curse that can’t be broken and I’ll scream yours like a wound that’s open.
*
“You know, all this time, I did still dream about you whenever I chose to sleep.”
Mei Nianqing’s breath hitches in his throat at the sudden admission. It was quiet; his voice all soft and tired and exhausted. Although by now, this is the usual; Jun Wu’s voice always being tired because he always is. Because after all this time, he’s fallen for the second time.
For Xie Lian, the second fall had come much earlier, and that was probably for the better. It came too late for Jun Wu. So many people wouldn’t have been hurt if only he had accepted his first fall or fallen before he could’ve wiped out the entire heavens and created monsters that destroyed so many people’s lives.
“Your Highness,” he starts, but is met with one of those scornful little snorts Jun Wu lets out every single time he addresses him as such.
“Never mind what I just said. I shouldn’t have.”
“No- it’s fine,” Mei Nianqing says, illuminating the candle in the small shack in Mount Tonglu that they live in.
Because he decided to stay after all this time, again, and Jun Wu decided seemingly that he would let him. Not that Mei Nianqing ever wanted to leave in first place; it’s just that there was barely another choice at the time. Maybe he shouldn’t have. He may not know what exactly happened to Xie Lian before his second ascension even now, the boy unwilling to tell him; but he knows it wasn’t good. And yet, Hua Cheng stayed. Maybe this is all Mei Nianqing’s fault.
He doesn’t know.
He doesn’t know whether it’s important or not, either.
“I never liked waking up from dreaming about you,” Jun Wu admits further, an insecurity laced into his voice that Mei Nianqing still can’t quite get used to; back when they were young, Jun Wu wasn’t insecure. Far from it, actually. And once they grew older, he was cruel, and maybe that was just an expression of his insecurity, but he hid it nonetheless, behind layers and layers of violence and obsession and hatred.
“Every time, you’d leave. I’d always wake up right when you left. I still have those dreams, even if you’ve stayed for the past few years.”
“I won’t leave you again, your Highness. You understood. That’s all I ever could have asked for.”
He looks at Jun Wu’s face; his thick, black eyebrows, slightly greying hair. His piercing eyes, glittering in the light of the tiny, tiny flame. The scars on his face where the faces used to be, burnt off by Mei Nianqing, the spirits of his friends finally released after such a long time. The skin there is a light pink, drawn together, because no matter what Mei Nianqing said to him, Jun Wu wouldn’t let him treat them with more than a normal ointment. Seemingly wanting to wear the scars as a reminder, or a punishment for himself.
“Yeah.”
It goes quiet again between them. It’s still the middle of the night. They’re meant to be sleeping, but it seems like it’s a night where neither of them can do so. In the past eight years, those nights have been numerous, uncountable. Things both said and unsaid standing between them, both of them aware of words that have been spoken out loud and that have only been thought because despite it all, they know each other well enough.
For a while, the only sound remains the almost inaudible flicker of the flame.
Yet, Mei Nianqing just keeps looking at him, studying his face. It’s much broader than it used to be in their youth; much sharper, jawline defined. Much older.
Obviously. If they were mortals, they’d have lived through so many more lifetimes by now. There’d be nothing left of their original characters by now.
“Mei Nianqing.”
In the first two years, Jun Wu’s voice always had a bite to it whenever he would address him with his whole name, but now, there’s none of that left. It just sounds like a man addressing another.
“Yes, your Highness?”
“I should thank you for raising Xianle so well, still. You did a good job at making him into someone that I couldn’t ever have been.”
By that, Mei Nianqing is definitely taken aback.
It took a while for Jun Wu to even be able to speak of the boy; it took him five years to attempt to write a letter of apology that Mei Nianqing deemed not good enough to send. It took another two for him to write one that Mei Nianqing accepted as one that he could give to Xie Lian, and Xie Lian hasn’t yet responded, even though it’s been a year.
Mei Nianqing can barely blame him. You don’t just accept an apology made by the person that destroyed both your life, and the life of the man you love.
But he’s never spoken this clearly about Mei Nianqing’s and Xie Lian’s relationship; Mei Nianqing never saw himself as a father for the boy or anything of the like; more a mentor figure. Although, considering the rupture in the relationship between Xie Lian and his actual father once Xie Lian grew up and ascended, he might have seen him in a similar way.
Maybe Mei Nianqing did see himself as a bit of a father for him.
He’s not entirely sure.
It’s been too long to tell.
All the lives he’s tried to save, he didn’t manage. Neither Jun Wu’s, nor Xie Lian’s, nor Shi Qingxuan’s. all of them went against his words and suffered the consequences. Maybe they’d have faced even worse consequences had they followed them.
“Your Highness… I didn’t raise him.”
“You did. And you did well in doing so, too.”
“I didn’t. I was really harsh with him.”
“And you think I wasn’t?”
“I doubt we are comparable in any way in that regard.”
Jun Wu also doesn’t talk about what happened prior to Xie Lian’s second ascension.
But he can imagine.
A small chuckle escapes Jun Wu’s throat, and he leans his face to the side a little bit, a strand of hair falling into his face now that he doesn’t wear is in a bun anymore like he used to as ‘Jun Wu’.
And that’s when Mei Nianqing realizes something – in the dim light of the flame, he can see that there’s color on Jun Wu’s face. Did he… just bring up Xie Lian as a matter of distraction from what he said before?
Now that’s much more like the Prince of Wuyong that Mei Nianqing used to know; cunning, but for the right reasons. Either to save the people, or to distract from the blunders he might have made.
“Your Highness, did you ever have positive dreams about me?”
The slight hitch in his breath confirms what Mei Nianqing has already been thinking; this was a mere distraction. He was already wondering why Jun Wu would go out of his way to first of all hurt himself by bringing up Xie Lian, and to secondly attempt to flatter him like this. But Mei Nianqing knows him too well, still; even after being parted from him for nearly two-thousand years, their only contacts fleeting or filled with hatred and hands wrapped around each other’s throats.
He pulls his knees up to his chest, the blanket falling off him as he watches Jun Wu’s Adam’s apple bob in his throat, clearly nervous still.
“Sometimes,” he answers, regardless of whatever shame he must be feeling right now, “most were positive at first. It’s just that you turned to leave in most. I’m sure that if I hadn’t woken up from the other dreams early enough, you would’ve left in those, too.”
Talking about this makes him look so vulnerable. It ignites a very own flame inside of Mei Nianqing to see him like this. He may look different and act different, but deep down, what is he but someone who rose too high and fell too low and was betrayed by everyone around him when everything could’ve been avoided if the other Gods at the time had helped him?
Maybe it wouldn’t have helped; maybe the people of Mount Tonglu were meant to perish. Mei Nianqing doesn’t know. it hurts either way.
Slowly, he turns more towards Jun Wu, reaching out his hand just a little, unsure of what exactly he’s reaching for. In the end, he settles for his shoulder. There’s no armor on them; just the plain, white robe he uses for sleeping, just so reminiscent of a funeral garb, just so reminiscent of the robe Xie Lian is wearing.
He’s warm below his touch. He knows that he himself, is warm, too.
(Something that Hua Cheng isn’t. At least they’re still alive; Hua Cheng never got the chance to live, even if he got the chance to ascend. Mei Nianqing does respect him, really. Even though he is what he is.)
“Your Highness. I won’t leave you again. I promise you.”
Jun Wu doesn’t meet his gaze, eyes instead cast downwards as he sits up a little, shrugging the hand of his shoulders.
Mei Nianqing hides the fact it hurts him below a practiced face.
“You’ve made that promise already, and broken it.”
“Does it really count? If I left but came back?”
“It counts to me,” this time, it sounds more hurt, like a small child that’s looking so desperately for any kind of acknowledgment from someone that’s hurt them.
Releasing a small sigh, Mei Nianqing shifts a little closer towards him, until their shoulders are touching, taking a deep breath and then leaning his head against Jun Wu’s shoulder in the slightest.
“I won’t leave. Not anymore. Even if it counts, it’s a thing of the past. You do not need to forgive me. I don’t forgive you for what you’ve done, either. But from now on, I’ll stay, regardless of what you have and haven’t done.”
He closes his eyes. Jun Wu smells much different from what he used to smell like in the past. It’s less flowers, more ash. Less fire, more smoke. Less life, more death.
And yet, it’s still him. If Mei Nianqing peels the layers off, there’s still flowers and fires and life.
“In some dreams, you kissed me like back then.”
It goes without saying what ‘back then’ means. They haven’t kissed ever since Wuyong was still alive and flourishing. It wasn’t many times by any means; and it certainly didn’t lead anywhere, Mei Nianqing having taken the same cultivation vows as several of his disciples later. Sometimes, it was kisses stolen in between training sessions, or while sparring when it was just the two of them. Sometimes, deep at night, when Jun Wu was out helping some person he wasn’t really meant to help, especially not after he had already ascended. Sometimes, they almost led to something, until Mei Nianqing managed to snap out of it and excuse himself, because his cultivation wasn’t worth a few moments of pleasure.
How long ago all of that was.
How much he wished that he hadn’t cared back then; not that he’d ever have admitted that to anyone, neither Jun Wu, nor Xie Lian or anyone else, really.
But he might as well admit it to himself.
Mei Nianqing doesn’t move on his shoulder, frozen in place, unsure of whether the sentence was an invitation or a warning. That if he kisses him, he’ll believe this to be a dream, too.
A small ‘tch’ leaves Jun Wu’s lips, the blow of air causing the small flame to dance wildly for a bit until it catches itself.
Just what way is he meant to take that reaction? Was it meant to be an invitation?
He can’t tell with Jun Wu. Not anymore.
And yet, everything inside of him yearns to kiss him, because he, too-
“Me too,” he forces out, no mater the embarrassment and consequences, and if it’s the wrong answer then hell, he’ll at least have tried, “in some of mine, you I kiss you like back then, too.”
A bump of his shoulder signifies that he wants Mei Nianqing to raise his head, so he does; looking back up at Jun Wu, the man he fell in love with god knows how many years ago, the man he fought for two-thousand years in order to keep the world stable, keep himself alive, keep the man he fought alive, too. The man who did things to Xie Lian that neither of them will speak of, and still gained enough sympathy for Xie Lian to be given a hat which clearly meant a lot to him.
The one single-handedly responsible for all three calamity-ranked ghost, not just because of what he made out of Mount Tonglu, but what he did; causing Xianle to fall and thus a soldier to die, causing a ghost to haunt a child until their brother would switch their fates with someone who would fall into deep despair afterwards.
Himself and Xie Lian. Twisting themselves until neither knew whether they were crying or laughing anymore.
And Mei Nianqing grabs him by his cheeks as if his life depends on it, everything, all decency thrown out, because right now, he doesn’t care anymore.
Jun Wu makes some sound that Mei Nianqing can’t even place – something between shock and delight, maybe – and then Mei Nianqing is already kissing him as hard as he possibly can. He captures his lips in one swift motion, presses his own against them with as much force as he can muster.
The contact nearly hurts. Not just because the contact is hard and without any regard for softness, but because Mei Nianqing has been dreaming of this for years.
Ever since his last kiss, he’s wanted nothing more than to kiss Jun Wu again. Feel his skin below his hands, even if there’s burn scars below his thumbs, feel his own digits treading through his hair.
Their teeth click, and it hurts.
But what hurts so much more is the way Jun Wu kisses him back, with hands gripping his waist with a strength and possessiveness behind them that makes Mei Nianqing dizzy almost immediately, biting his lips every few seconds, more on accident than on purpose, so clumsy in his motions.
It’s been two-thousand years.
Two-thousand years since they’ve kissed, and this time, it feels so different. There’s nothing of that youthful innocence left for either of them; it’s only centuries of hate and love and a desire so deep that it turns his stomach.
The hands on his waist are trembling and the only explanation Mei Nianqing can find is that he’s still scared he’ll leave, so he kisses him even harder to assure him that he’ll stay.
It feels as if Jun Wu is devouring him, and if Mei Nianqing is devouring him back then that's okay, because maybe this is exactly what they needed.
Maybe this is all they really needed.
After a while, Mei Nianqing presses his entire bodyweight against Jun Wu, until they’re lying on the small bed that they’ve slept in together for the past eight years without anything like this ever happening, and he grabs Jun Wu’s hands until he has him pinned below him.
Only then do they break apart and open their eyes back up, and Mei Nianqing sees a smile on Jun Wu’s face that isn’t unlike Xie Lian’s when he praised Hua Cheng’s god-awful calligraphy. He thinks there might be tears in his eyes, but he can’t tell, not with the candle’s light being blocked by himself.
“Nianqing.”
“…Yes?” Mei Nianqing makes very unhelpfully, letting Jun Wu intertwine their fingers.
“This isn’t a dream, is it? You’re not going to leave, are you?”
“I won’t. I promise you, this isn’t a dream. And I promise you that I’m not going to leave. Not anymore. I won’t apologize for leaving, but I won’t leave again, either.”
“Yeah,” Jun Wu whispers, “that’s good enough. Kiss me again. Make sure I know this isn’t a dream.”
Mei Nianqing chuckles once, twice, and then leans right back down to do as told, because this man is still his prince, and he still has to heed his commands, and he also wants nothing more than to prove to himself that this isn’t a dream again.
Because even if he smells of ash and smoke and death, it’s not like he’ll never smell of flowers and fire and life again.