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waking up again felt like falling from the top of the tree; spreading pain to every bone and every muscle, every bit of tiny bits on his body.
song lan felt himself groaning as a juicy curse left his lips, "fuck."
then, he laid rigid in an instant.
he has, excuse me, done what now?
as if not believing his own ears, he unceremoniously inserted hand into his mouth. he choked and almost threw up nothing, biting himself and his tongue in the process.
his tongue.
he was so petrified by the discovery it took him longer than it should to notice more things. first, he was breathing. second, his pulse was going crazy, and the heart that forgot to beat for so long seemed to be trying to make up for the loss. he was shaking, but still didn't open his eyes.
he didn't know what to expect, and if he would be able to take disappointment.
it only took a sound of someone else's slow breathing that made song lan shoot his eyelids open and gather to sit up.
of course, his head blacked out for a long while but he still scrambled around until he found him. the first thing he touched was the sleeve of his white robe.
then towards his hand.
song lan was not good at speaking poetries, but for the way it felt to feel how warm this hand was he could sing ballads for a month straight with no break for air.
his eyes rode up and fell on xiao xingchen's chest. song lan saw it rising and falling, rising and falling. higher up towards the neck, song lan almost toppled over.
it was still there. although it was no longer flesh torn apart, it still marked the place shuanghua sliced through. a narrow, slim scar.
he touched it with his shaky fingers and felt for the pulse. once he caught it, he felt his vision blur.
he could barely see xingchen's face through tears seeping through his eyes like he was a wall breaking. he tried to wipe them away and calm the fuck down, but it only made him sob.
the last time he cried like this was when he found out his mother died. now he cried because somebody lived.
"xingchen?" he hoarsed out, grabbing at his shoulders and shaking lightly. his fingers trembled so hard he might have accidentally torn his outer robe apart. "xingchen."
"xingchen, wake up. please, please, please wake up."
he forgot how annoying his own voice could be.
"don't sleep, you have to get up... xingchen..."
"wake up."
"come on, you slept so long already."
"wake up..."
and then, suddenly, he heard a muffled grumpy groan and xingchen moved to turn on his side, "five more minutes, zichen..."
song lan burst out crying. the sobs were ragging out of his throat and it hurt like hell, but he was also laughing out loud at the same time.
in this state, he barely noticed xingchen's eyes shooting open. he didn't see the shock on his face when he saw. and before he could even register the act of seeing, he realised who was right next to him.
"zichen?!"
song lan picked him up from the ground and locked in a tight, trembling hug as he shamelessly soaked up his shoulder.
xingchen was barely registering the facts. the very idea that he was alive got him feeling dizzy, as he mindlessly wrapped one hand around song lan's back, the other touching his neck.
could he be that he'd gone completely crazy?
"xingchen..."
song lan? song zichen? he spoke! he spoke? zichen? xingchen, eyes, life, zichen, speaking, what–
xingchen's head could not take it all. but when it finally did, he wasn't worse than song lan, oh no.
with a sudden sob tearing out of him, he tightened his arms around him, too.
later when they were slightly more collected, they attacked each other with apology until one told the other to shut up and hugged close again. song lan didn't care anymore. his hands were running down xingchen's hair, his back, his arms. he scooped his face in between his palms, and cried once again because fuck–
"your eyes–"
they were there, but not really. they were hundred percent there, but they were hundred percent not xingchen's; they used to belong to song lan.
"your voice..."
"you!"
"zichen, ah zichen... what on earth happened..?"
"i'll tell you, i'll tell you everything. i promise i will... i promise."
