Work Text:
The truth was that Xie Lian had always known that Feng Xin would leave one day.
It was Xie Lian’s worst nightmare, his greatest, most terrifying fear -
But it was the kind of fear that one was terrified of because of its inevitability.
Call it a premonition, call it foresight. He could see it clearly, exactly how it would play out, all the way until the last page, the final word in the script. In every version of the story, it would end like this:
Feng Xin would leave him.
He would finally have enough of being dragged around by a broken, empty shell of a man.
And then he would abandon Xie Lian.
And Xie Lian would be left behind, a lone figure in the vast darkness, still spinning in empty space, without Feng Xin.
They were always headed here. From the start until now, this was always how it was going to end.
And Xie Lian knew that he would not survive that day.
The day grew ever nearer. As the warm words between the two of them turned to raised voices and bitter arguments, as Xie Lian's sanity snapped and Feng Xin's patience wore thin; as Xie Lian could see on Feng Xin's face, reflected in Feng Xin's eyes, that Xie Lian was no longer the glorious, magnificent Taizi Dianxia that Feng Xin hero-worshipped and gazed up at with reverence.
Xie Lian could see the growing frustration, hesitance, doubt.
He knew.
It was only a matter of time.
“I, I really don’t know, I’m, then why have I followed you all this time…”
When Feng Xin mumbled this through gritted teeth, his expression terrible, voice cracked -
Xie Lian knew instantly, instinctively, that this was it. It was the end.
That their friendship, their love, their camaraderie, everything between them, could not be salvaged any longer.
That all of Xie Lian's pathetic, desperate attempts to delay the inevitable, were futile in the end.
That Feng Xin was already thinking of leaving.
He could hear it in Feng Xin’s voice. The doubt, the uncertainty, that terrible expression on his face that Xie Lian could not stand seeing, filled with what was no doubt regret, and disgust at the state that Xie Lian had become -
Feng Xin didn’t know what he was staying for anymore.
And the truth was, neither did Xie Lian.
He couldn’t stand it anymore. Couldn’t stand the slow wait for Feng Xin to abandon him, couldn’t stand sleeping with a butcher’s blade hanging over his neck each night, waiting for the impact, the bloody slice through the neck.
It was either a slow death bleeding by a thousand cuts, or a quick, clean slice through the neck.
Why torment them both any further?
And so Xie Lian chose the slice through the neck.
A severing of the artery in one smooth movement. No need to drag it out any further, no need to bleed to death.
“Then go. I said, I don't need you anymore. Just go.”
Just like that, Xie Lian's worst nightmares came true.
Feng Xin really left. He really walked out of the door of the ramshackle cottage, never to return.
Distantly, Xie Lian heard those achingly familiar footsteps, growing distant, leaving him for the first and last time -
The loss of his faithful best friend, his loyal bodyguard, his first love. The one companion he couldn’t bear to lose. It was a loss he couldn’t endure, couldn’t live through.
It was as if the whole world had came crashing around Xie Lian, the earth stopped spinning. It was as if when Feng Xin left, he took Xie Lian’s fresh and red and raw and pumping heart with him.
Without it, without Feng Xin - somehow, it felt like the very world itself had been bled dry of all color.
Once, Feng Xin was Xie Lian's best friend in the whole world; once, he was Xie Lian's most faithful bodyguard.
Once, he was Xie Lian’s own forbidden twilight lover.
Feng Xin's steady presence, his loud raucous laughter, vibrant and unrestrained as he laughed at Xie Lian’s ridiculous jokes. The brilliant, sunlit days of their youth, back when things were so simple that the biggest problem they had was a scraped knee one of them acquired play-fighting.
The days spent glued to each other's sides, Feng Xin’s sunny grin as Xie Lian kissed him, Feng Xin’s steadfast hand on his bow as he fought side by side with Xie Lian in battle, that sure aim that did not waver even when he broke his limb just for Xie Lian. Feng Xin’s strong arms around Xie Lian's shoulders as he held Xie Lian close when he woke up screaming from a nightmare of ghostly masks -
Everything that had once lived between them, every last look of love and longing, every last peal of bright laughter from Feng Xin’s mouth, every petal-light smile from Xie Lian’s lips, every lingering kiss exchanged between the two -
All of it was gone.
Turned to ash, burnt to soot. Nothing but cindered smoke, ashes on the wind.
Feng Xin had promised. He had promised. He had sworn to Xie Lian that he would never leave. That he would be by Xie Lian's side forever, protecting him.
A bodyguard's oath, a best friend's vow.
But, Dianxia, don't you worry, I will never leave you.
And still, he had left anyway.
Xie Lian understood then. No one would ever love him enough to stay. No one could ever look at him, wretched and damaged, a charred, empty shell of a man, and stay.
Alone, listless, numb to the core - this was what Xie Lian deserved. He understood.
“Huang’er.”
Xie Lian did not register his mother's voice. Ever since Feng Xin left, everything blurred together in a haze of nothingness. He didn't know what time of the day it was, or how long it had been since Feng Xin was gone.
All he knew was that Feng Xin was gone.
“Huang'er!’
A hand landed on Xie Lian's shoulder, and he nearly screamed, the image of an eerie white crying-smiling mask flashing through his mind.
Weakly, he opened his eyes, to gaze upon his mother's gaunt face, her eyebrows drawn up in concern. She was so thin, they all were, and if Xie Lian could still feel a thing, it would have broken his heart to see his beloved mother like this.
As it was, he simply stared at her.
“Huang'er, I made you something, will you please eat? I'm worried about you.”
Xie Lian couldn't muster the energy even to answer. Not even a nod, or a shake of his head. There was no strength left in his lips.
Instead, he stared blankly back at his mother.
“Huang'er, I know you're sad now that Feng Xin is gone, but please, you have to eat… Or, at least drink some soup…”
Tears pooled in his mother's beautiful phoenix eyes, and the atrophied organ that lay in Xie Lian's ribs nearly throbbed in anguish.
Still, he couldn't muster up the energy nor the will to respond.
Ever since Feng Xin left, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel.
He didn't sleep, didn't eat, didn't drink water, couldn't muster up the energy to shower, to step out of that cottage to busk for food, to bring his parents medicine.
His hair hung around his shoulders in tangled, matted clumps, a pungent stench coming off him in waves - and Xie Lian couldn’t find it in himself to care. It was Feng Xin who used to admonish him affectionately for running around with messy hair and bare feet.
But now Feng Xin was gone, so what was the point? There was no one around to care what Xie Lian did or did not do. Save for his parents who barely had energy themselves.
All he did was to lie apathetically in bed, staring listlessly at the wall, occasionally contemplating what it would be like to have the white silk band around his neck.
Some distant, tiny part of him shouted at himself to run after Feng Xin. Run after Feng Xin, tell him he didn't mean it, ask him to come back, swear to fix everything. Perhaps if he was still the old Xie Lian, if he was the Taizi Dianxia that he had once been ages ago - the Taizi Dianxia that Feng Xin had loved once upon a time - perhaps he would have done it.
But the old Taizi Dianxia, the boy who Feng Xin had loved and idolized and sworn to follow for all time -
Was gone.
All that was left was him, a weak, pathetic mortal, cold as ice, someone who could cruelly kick out the one person he was terrified of losing.
And the thread of the old love that had once sung and thrummed between them, was now broken.
Every bit of love and goodness between them was bled dry, and all that was left was -
Emptiness. Nothingness.
Xie Lian could feel the void where the heartbreak should be, the pain should be, but it didn't come.
All there was was silence.
There was a hole where his heart used to be.
It was like frost had crept up his lungs, and icy claws had closed around his heart.
He felt nothing.
The truth was, if he let himself feel the full force of what he had done -
He would shatter.
Those steps that Feng Xin took as he walked out of that door were the hardest goddamn thing that he had done in his entire life.
It was him who was leaving, but why did it feel like he was the one left behind?
It was killing him to do this.
He had meant it, when he had sworn that he would be by Dianxia’s side forever - if only Dianxia would let him.
Taizi Dianxia was the very sun that his fucking world spun around, and how could a planet possibly leave its sun? How could a planet possibly pull itself away from its orbit, its natural path?
He didn’t know how he could bear to do this.
Didn’t know how his feet were still moving.
Didn’t know how his legs were still standing.
Didn’t know how he was doing anything but turning around and running right back to fucking beg Dianxia to take him back.
All he knew was that his limbs were moving on a command that was not his own. Taking him further, further, further away from his prince.
All he knew was that the boy he loved was gone, and in his place stood a stranger who Feng Xin didn’t know, didn’t recognize, didn't understand.
He understood that Dianxia didn't want him around anymore, that there was no place for Feng Xin in that small decaying, derelict house any longer. No place for him by Dianxia's side.
Feng Xin had tried so hard, given everything he had and more, but in the end none of it was enough. He couldn't save Dianxia, couldn’t get through to him. Couldn’t do a single goddamn thing.
And Feng Xin knew when he was no longer wanted, when he had overstayed his welcome.
So he had no choice.
He had to leave.
When the truth finally hit Xie Lian, when the full weight of what he had done finally crashed into him with the force of an axe - a scream rose in his lungs, raw and grief-stricken and terrifying, drawing blood from his cracked throat.
The pain arrived then, so immense that it split him open, swallowed him whole. Consumed him in its heavy, hopeless weight.
The wave of raw nausea, the horror, the blinding panic at what he had done, threatened to sweep him away.
He had kicked out his own best friend. With his own hands, he had destroyed everything, driven away the last person who loved him besides his parents. The last person who would ever had a chance of staying. With his own hands, he had torn it all down to dust, and now it was gone forever.
It was Feng Xin and him against the world, once.
Now it was just him.
Alone in that crumbling cottage where they had tried and failed to build a home, Xie Lian wept.
He sobbed and heaved and bawled and screamed, until his throat was scraped raw, until every last drop of moisture was wrung dry from his eyes, until there was no more breath left in him at all.