Together We Will Always Fly

Chapter 6

I good friend of mine is finally giving up cigarettes! Two weeks in and things are going well, except for the number of bizarre conversations involving addiction. His overthinking led to this story and me unloading my frustrations on fanfiction.

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Does an addict ever truly free themselves from an addiction?

It is a question that Shen Wei has never asked himself before. Addiction he finds is difficult to understand, when you have never experienced it firsthand, the line between giving in to the cravings and soldiering on despite of them, is a fine charcoal border, easy to cross against advice, support or better judgment.

He has never judged the addicted. Throughout the centuries, he had met several high-functioning alcoholics, and a few drug addicts well before the term was invented. This was before pamphlets and therapy existed as well, the cravings leading to early death and a life wasted for most of them, but even then, he had never personally known someone, struggling against their demons in this way. It was always at a distance, eying the cost of their failures and their obvious lack of control.

Now he realizes that it was nothing to do with control or failure. He feels embarrassed by his unfair judgement and tries to understand the situation in a new light.

Zhao Yunlan is biting his thumb again.

Warm brown eyes slide from the alluring sight and return to the page before him, an essay on bio-mechanics that is surprisingly well thought out, offering insights that he will need to discuss further with the student. He should focus, but his gaze almost entirely against his will, drops to the page, then lifts to see the love of his immortal life, sitting beside him on the sofa, sharp white teeth biting into the fleshy part of his thumb, the area flushing red from the force of the bite.

His cherished seems oblivious to the finger in his mouth or the pain that must be registering somewhere in that clever mind. Shen Wei wants to pull the abused thumb free and perhaps distract him with a lollipop or a kiss, but Yunlan is clearly thinking, eyes darting from the computer screen to the file in his free hand.

The lollipops were at first another sign that this gorgeous man with Kunlun's face, was in fact his lover missing for ten thousand years. He thought little more than that, an indulgence, something Kunlun had always enjoyed, it was harmless and adorable. Sometimes tempting and sinful the way he would pull the hard sweet, from his lush, warm mouth with an indecent pop...or run his tongue over the surface sending want down racing down Shen Wei's spine...

Then the Chancellor had made a strange remark, judging Zhao Yunlan with a careless, sneering "I suppose that man was smoker. He could have chosen something more mature or healthier!"

Smoking kills. Everyone knew this and Shen Wei was hardly an exception, but there is a difference between knowing a substance can kill and realizing that the love of your life, was once the person addicted to cigarettes. This had led to a great deal of research, on smoking and quitting, the health scares that sent icy chills along his skin, with words such as cancer and heart disease being so prominent. As a biologist he researches other avenues as well, worrying himself when he finds that the bulk of the scientific work dedicated to smoking, mentions mortality statistics and the high likelihood of returning to nicotine.

One thing became clear, stress tends to drive a person, to a return to smoking.

Zhao Yunlan is stubborn and self reliant, nothing could have a hold over him, that he chooses to deny. He doubts he will return to the packet and he has faith in very little, but all that he has, is invested in Zhao Yunlan. To doubt him goes against the very grain of who he is, but what this discovery leads to is a worry that he cannot let go of.