XiCheng: The Last Lotus [AU- OMEGAVERSE]

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Jiang Wanyin does not like this Jiang Cheng at all. In fact, he's really starting to hate him.

Something is wrong- that much Lan Xichen is sure of. He has not yet pinpointed where things have gone south, or what terrible atrocity he has no doubt committed, but he is positive that his marriage has soured. He is aware of the repercussions, yet the crime still eludes him.

Jiang Cheng is pulling away- squirming, shying, evading Lan Xichen's grasp. He still allows Xichen's touch, on the rare occasions he lets himself get manhandled into some poor excuse of an embrace. But he is also distant- cold, aloof even.

It reminds Xichen of Wangji during the later years of their childhood when everything was blurred from tears and Mother's death. There was a blizzard that year, ingrained deeply in Lan Xichen's memory. A terrible snowfall that befell Gusu the winter after mourning bells for a forbidden funeral never rang.

Wangji had been quiet then too- silent even. Retreating his little head back into the invisible shell he always carried around on his back. Xichen remembers wanting to ask if his brother's neck hurt from peaking out every once in a while, before tucking his shoulders and effectively withdrawing again.

He never got around to it, but the urge still clings to the tip of his tongue. He wants to ask Jiang Cheng now too.

Are you avoiding me? He wants to blurt. But the words die in his mouth, tasting like ash. He's scared, Lan Xichen realizes. Terrified, he supposes. The fear lies yawning in his gut, worry bubbling up his chest before he tamps it down, stomping it out before it ever spills past his lips in all its ugly glory.

Fear, Lan Xichen has come to realize, is an easy emotion to decipher. It no longer eludes him like in the days of his youth, when he was still arrogant and young and foolish. Time has long since helped him recognize the telltale butterflies, swooping around in his stomach. It's not the butterflies he gets from being nervous, not the ones that make him squirm in anticipation. It's the dread curling in his stomach, playing catch with Lan Xichen's lunch.

It's been a long time since Jiang Cheng last allowed him past the gates protecting his vulnerability. So long in fact that Lan Xichen has gotten unaccustomed to asking for access. Not to say, Jiang Cheng would even grant said access in the first place- but well, Lan Xichen is pretty sure that he'll never get what he wants if he doesn't dare ask. 

Did I do something wrong?

He tries once. When they are both sweaty and exhausted from a trip to Caiyi, he steels himself enough to open his mouth once more, the words already hanging to the tip of his tongue, thoroughly rehearsed and waiting to be voiced. Those words died a miserable death in his throat, and he had snapped his jaw shut, so tight it rattled his teeth.

He doesn't know why he's so scared of asking. It's just a question. A perfectly reasonable one, at that.

Lan Xichen has nothing to be afraid of-

But still. Still, the question lies silenced by his tongue. He is betrayed by his own mouth. He is standing on the edge of a precipice, with the milky way lying between them, and a magpie bridge stretching from end to end. There are galaxies of distance that he can bridge with a single sentence, misunderstandings and silenced questions dissipating under the certainty of loving, and being loved in return. All Lan Xichen has to do is ask. But he-

He can barely recognize this new Jiang Cheng anymore. He is scared. Will this Jiang Cheng hate him if he asks?

Are you mad at me? 

Could it be that Jiang Cheng still resents Xichen for failing him all those years ago? He thinks it's a reasonable explanation. There is no omega alive who wouldn't detest such a pathetic excuse of an alpha. It is only logical that Jiang Cheng still harbors a grudge.