Work Text:
Just because a dive is straight forward doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Lu Guang was having trouble focusing through Cheng Xiaoshi’s complaining.
“Take a right at this fork,” Lu Guang directed. As he talked, he marked the path Cheng Xiaoshi was tracing on the map sitting next to him.
“Am I almost there? I’m miserable. This is miserable, Lu Guang. You get to sit there in our warm house while I-,” he cut himself off with another thought. “I bet you're curled up under a blanket right now. Why do I always get the short end of the stick in this? I just want to go home. How much longer does she wander around?”
Lu Guang didn’t brother responding to the rant he’d heard countless times already. “See those footprints to your left? Follow them.”
“Up the mountain?” Cheng Xiaoshi asked incredulously. “There’s no path there.”
“I know.”
Cheng Xiaoshi’s breath fogged in the air as he huffed. “She’s an idiot," he mumbled out loud. He pressed on.
Lu Guang couldn’t help but agree.
Lu Guang had been wary about taking this client, but Qiao Ling had pushed and pushed until he relented. Still, he had told her, he needed to talk it through with Cheng Xiaoshi first. He wasn’t a monster.
Cheng Xiaoshi had insisted that he would be fine, of course. He liked hiking, he argued, and he’d never been that bothered by cold. Although, Lu Guang was becoming more and more convinced that this was his first experience with cold this extreme.
He’d agreed to let Cheng Xiaoshi dive under the promise that he wouldn’t complain. That was a promise that Cheng Xiaoshi had broken very quickly.
When a woman came into the studio tentatively asking to talk to Qiao Ling alone, Lu Guang was apprehensive. After she was finally able to meet up with the client, Qiao Ling insisted that they take the job.
Their client needed help finding a spot she’d seen years ago while wandering around an expansive national park trail. Or rather, the area vaguely around the trial, as she decided to go wherever the hell she wanted in the area, which is why she needed help retracing her path to a spot that was apparently so beautiful she couldn’t stop thinking about it.
When pressed on why the client needed to find the spot, all Qiao Ling would divulge was that she wanted to show a friend.
Lu Guang said that they wouldn’t take the case, because that was a stupid reason to make Cheng Xiaoshi stumble around in dangerous cold for hours.
Well, that’s not exactly what he told Qiao Ling. All he told the witch was that the case wasn’t worth their time.
It wasn’t until after much begging that Qiao Ling finally revealed why she cared so much.
The client wasn’t just finding the spot to show some random friend.
She had decided that it would be the perfect spot to propose to her girlfriend next month.
Cheng Xiaoshi declared that they would take the case.
And now he trudged through the snow for the sake of a stranger’s love story. They’d done weirder things.
“I sure hope her girlfriend likes hiking.” Cheng Xiaoshi’s voice cut through his mind without warning. “If someone drug me all the way out here to propose, I’d say no.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.” Lu Guang replied flatly.
Cheng Xiaoshi’s laugh echoed through his skull. He couldn’t see their client’s mouth under her scarf, but Lu Guang was sure it was smiling.
“You’re almost there. It’s just over the top of this hill.”
“If you know where it is, can’t I just come home now?”
“All that work and you don’t even want to take in the view?” The client had given them pictures of the spot, but it wasn’t the same.
Cheng Xiaoshi groaned, but he plodded the last ten steps over the peak. His breath caught.
“I think I get it,” he thought, voice whispering in a way that made Lu Guang suspect he wasn’t meant to hear it.
Spread out in front of the woman was what was usually a waterfall. Right now, though, the water was frozen mid fall. It had been suspended in sharp spikes on its way down, but a dusting of snow managed to make it look soft anyway. In front of the waterfall was a small pond with ice that looked thick enough for skating. The whole scene glistened from the sun somewhere high above.
The client would spend almost an hour exploring the area, testing the ice, climbing the rocks, and finding a small alcove behind the waterfall, before heading back the way she came.
Cheng Xiaoshi was not going to wait around for that.
When Cheng Xiaoshi appeared on the couch next to Lu Guang, he was still shivering. He immediately curled into Lu Guang, pushing his hands up Lu Guang’s shirt for warmth.
Lu Guang’s first instinct was to push his Cheng Xiaoshi away, but despite his shivering, his hands weren’t cold. They were warm, as always.
“I’m still so cold,” Cheng Xiaoshi muttered after a moment.
“Do you want me to get you a blanket and some tea?” Lu Guang asked Cheng Xiaoshi, already starting to stand up. If he’d planned ahead better, he would have gotten those before Cheng Xiaoshi got back, but he hadn’t realized that Cheng Xiaoshi would still be this cold when he returned to his own body.
Lu Guang ignored Cheng Xiaoshi’s feeble protests as he extracted himself from his grasp. Cheng Xiaoshi fell on his side on the couch, wrapping his jacket tighter around himself.
He was still like that when Lu Guang got back with the blanket. Cheng Xiaoshi tried to snatch it the second he saw it, but Lu Guang evaded his greedy hands. He wanted to lay it across his partner himself.
Cheng Xiaoshi snuggled into it until only his eyes were visible. Lu Guang couldn’t help but think that he looked a little bit like a puppy.
“Thank you,” he said, words muffled by the blanket, “But I’d be warmer if you came under here with me.”
Lu Guang wasn’t going to pretend that it wasn’t a tempting offer. But–
“The water is going to boil soon.”
Cheng Xiaoshi groaned. Lu Guang let his fingers brush Cheng Xiaoshi’s temple. He meant for the touch to be reassuring, but his cold fingers caused Cheng Xiaoshi to flinch back.
Their teapot screeched from the other room.
“Get yourself a cup of tea too,” Cheng Xiaoshi grumbled. “Warm up your freezer fingers.”
Lu Guang had already planned on it, but not to warm up his fingers. He’d already resigned himself to the fact that his fingers perpetually run cold and that Cheng Xiaoshi would eternally complain about it.
When Lu Guang got back with the tea, he forced Cheng Xiaoshi to sit up before he could grab it. Cheng Xiaoshi wrapped his fingers around the mug gratefully. He shifted the mug to one had, though, when Lu Guang sat down on the couch next to him, in order to wrap the blanket around both of them and pull Lu Guang’s free hand across his own shoulder.
Lu Guang let himself hold Cheng Xiaoshi tight as he curled up, knees pressed to his chest, mug gripped close, and face nuzzled into his partner’s neck.
“Are you warming up now?” Lu Guang asked.
“Getting there.” Lu Guang felt Cheng Xiaoshi’s breath tickle across his neck as he spoke. “But can we get hotpot tonight?”