Work Text:
Cheng Xiaoshi thought about the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice a lot.
Well, to be fair, he’s never read the myth himself, only knowing the story through Lu Guang’s words, through Lu Guang’s perspective.
Idiot. I’ve always told you to read more books.
He still remembered the day Lu Guang read it to him. It was in this sunroom, during their day off.
It was a lazy day, and Cheng Xiaoshi had spent the better half of two hours playing on his phone while Lu Guang read a new book about philosophy or whatever.
He was about to enter a new match when his screen darkened.
“Fuck- my phone’s dead.” Cheng Xiaoshi looked over to Lu Guang, who didn’t even lift his head.
“Charge it, then,” Lu Guang told him. He would, but he just didn’t feel like going to the room to retrieve his charger. Somehow, the thought of getting up and disrupting the peacefulness felt awful that day.
He sprawled across Lu Guang’s lap, tossing aside his dead phone. Lu Guang easily acquiesced to his presence, raising his book just high enough to avoid it smacking into Cheng Xiaoshi’s face.
“Aw, c’mon Lu Guang, won’t you play with me? Pleaaaaseeee?” he whined, tugging at the book to reveal Lu Guang’s exasperated gaze. “There’s nothing to for me to do! We could tell horror stories-“
“No. We’re not kids at a school trip.” Lu Guang rolled his eyes and pointedly said, “You could read a book too, you know.”
“Lu Guaaaaaangggggggggg,” Cheng Xiaoshi pulled harder at the book until it slipped out of Lu Guang’s grasp and promptly discarded it as well, ignoring the other’s huff of disapproval. “I’m bored. Entertain me.”
His pleas finally made Lu Guang relent, and Cheng Xiaoshi cheered when he pinched the space between his brows, knowing that it was a silent sign of him giving in.
“Fine. You want a story so bad?” Lu Guang signed, eyes wandering around the room before settling on his face. “….Have you heard of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice?”
“Huh? Like, from the game?” Cheng Xiaoshi tilted his head in confusion. Lu Guang just shook his head in response.
“I knew it. You really should read more books,” Lu Guang couldn’t help but poke Cheng Xiaoshi’s forehead, what with it being such an easy target at such close distance. “It’s a Greek myth that everyone know. Idiots notwithstanding.”
“Hey!” Cheng Xiaoshi sat up a little and batted his hand away, only for the other one to reach over as well.
They tussled for a bit, ending with the both of them tangled together as Cheng Xiaoshi triumphantly trapped both of Lu Guang’s hands crisscrossed the other’s chest, pulling him closer until his back was touching his chest. With only a token struggle, Lu Guang easily sagged down in surrender, tilting his head back to rest against Cheng Xiaoshi’s shoulder.
After a moment of silence (and a lot of fidgeting from Cheng Xiaoshi), Lu Guang started to tell him the story of Orpheus and Eurydice.
The story was interesting, but Cheng Xiaoshi was far more distracted by the warmth pressing against him and the soft vibrations reverberating through his arms as Lu Guang spoke in a soothing tone. By the end, they were both laying down, Cheng Xiaoshi’s hands loosening their grip and Lu Guang’s turning to intertwine their fingers.
“… and then she vanished, returning to the afterlife forever.”
Cheng Xiaoshi yawned, feeling drowsy from the heat. “That’s kinda stupid. He could have been more careful and waited until they passed the threshold before turning around.”
“God, go to sleep already, won’t you?” Lu Guang grumbled quietly before saying, louder, “That’s not possible. In almost all versions of the myth, he turns around because of love.”
“What… just don’t turn around… dumbass…” Cheng Xiaoshi struggled not to nod off, finding the whole tale ridiculous and needing to say it.
Sighing, Lu Guang played along. “It’s not that he wasn’t careful. He just loves her so much that he needed to turn around. He’s eager to see her face, so he turns around. He hears her stumble, so he turns around. He can’t hear her, so he turns around.”
Lu Guang then fell silent for a long time, long enough that Cheng Xiaoshi was about to drift off, before saying, “He loves her enough to save her, but he loves her so much that he can’t ever save her.”
Cheng Xiaoshi hummed, eyelids heavy, when he realised what Lu Guang had muttered before. He bolted upright. Grunting in dissatisfaction, Lu Guang tugged on his hand in a silent demand for him to lay back down. But Cheng Xiaoshi had a far bigger concern.
“Did you seriously try to make me fall asleep with a bedtime story?” Cheng Xiaoshi stared at him in disbelief. Lu Guang just avoided bjs gaze as he muttered, “Well, it almost worked.”
Growling, Cheng Xiaoshi pounced on him. “I’m not a baby!”
——
“Lu Guang ah Lu Guang,” Cheng Xiaoshi murmured, staring at the photo. “Everything was perfectly planned out, wasn’t it? You just didn’t expect one thing.”
The way Lu Guang always told him that he couldn’t change anyone’s death, that he might have made it worse, implicated innocent people. The way, in hindsight, Lu Guang’s words had started to bear an odd weight to it.
Was that when Lu Guang had broken his own rules? When Lu Guang returned to the past, driven by a singular mission that went against every single one of his morals?
He probably expected Cheng Xiaoshi to hesitate, to flinch from changing the past if it meant that innocents might be hurt from his selfishness. To stop at the thought of Lu Guang hating him. But now, he knew better.
He could already imagine how the man had planned it, with how Lu Guang thought. Sharply rebuke him if he ever strayed from the rules, so in the event that Lu Guang d- that Lu Guang… accomplished his mission, Cheng Xiaoshi wouldn’t do anything foolish, like go back in time to save him and undo all of his hard work.
But it didn’t matter what he had planned, because all of it likely hinged on the fact that no one knew that he went back in time.
Qiao Ling had spilled everything she had seen in Lu Guang’s memories with heaving sobs that rendered her words almost indecipherable, all while Cheng Xiaoshi stared blankly at Lu Guang’s face. He remembered hating how serene the man looked, like he thought everything was right in the world,
unaware that Cheng Xiaoshi’s world had stopped turning the moment he had stopped breathing
, like his limp hand and unmoving chest wasn’t the most terrifying thing in the world.
He could still recall how the words finally settled in his mind, and he had slowly lifted his head to look at her.
“He- I don’t know how, but he saw- he saw your death. I’m so sorry, Xiaoshi, I thought that what I saw wasn’t real, that it was just a nightmare. If- If I had told you sooner, if I didn’t dismiss it so quickly- I’m so sorry -“
Her tear-stained face seemed so far away, in light of the revelation of her words. His death?
Then everything clicked in place.
Lu Guang expected him to grieve his death and then move on, holding on to the misguided idea that Cheng Xiaoshi, no matter how shattered, would have by then learnt that there was no changing the past, accepted his death and soldiered on.
Lu Guang had always assumed Cheng Xiaoshi had better morals than himself.
If there was even a slim chance that he could save Lu Guang, then Cheng Xiaoshi would do so in a heartbeat, the rest of the world be damned.
After all, proof that the past could be changed was in his very existence, as he breathed what should’ve been Lu Guang’s breath, as his heart beat the rhythm that Lu Guang’s heart should’ve been beating.
Now, the silence of the room was deafening, where it was once filled with the flip of a page or footsteps. He could imagine looking over at the couch and seeing Lu Guang looking at him, a weary look of resignation on his face as he realised what Cheng Xiaoshi was about to do. Because here, where Lu Guang wasn’t , he had no power to stop him. The thought did nothing but strengthen Cheng Xiaoshi’s resolve.
He closed his eyes.
In every version of the myth, Orpheus would never be able to save Eurydice. After all-
It was love that would make Orpheus turn back.
It was love that trapped them in this terrible loop of saving and being saved.
It was love that gave them hope that the cycle would break, that one of them would learn to give up.
It was love that doomed them to fail.
.He brought his hands together