3 and 4 for XiCheng please? Thank you 💙💜 /ijustwantsomeangstuwu
I’m so not good at writing angst with these two (I can’t HELP IT. I just want to give them all the fluff and good things), but I hope you don’t mind that I’m sticking this in the Journeys ‘verse fic: In the Woods Somewhere
A deep laugh sounded in his ear, his skin prickling as warm lips kissed his skin.
“Oh,” the deep voice said. “Does the Exalted Winter King have a splinter.” Fingers wrapped around his wrist, bringing his hand up. “Does His Grace need me to kiss where it hurts?”
He looked up into glowing violet eyes.
Xichen felt overcome with a wave of love as he nodded and those warm lips from before were on his fingertips.
Xichen awoke with tears on his cheeks. His body shook with chills as the last tendrils of the dream? Memory? Faded from him in the weak light of dawn. He sat up, trying not to wince as he hands rested on the rough fabric of the sheets in his current room.
Xichen did not like the Mortal World. It was so loud here. A cacophony of harsh, crashing sounds. Anger and resentment radiated off of everything. It felt tainted here, the very air. The earth. The water.
He missed his home; he desperately missed the Winter Court, but this brother was here. And the answer to his missing memories was here too, somewhere, out in this vast world, was the other half of his soul. His husband, who had left him, taking all their memories.
Or he had tried to, at least. It was not an easy thing, even for a wizard as supposedly powerful as the mysterious Jiang Cheng to cut out all the memories of a Sidhe who had given his heart freely and fully. The memories were coming back to Xichen, bit by bit, slowly, disjointed, but still trickling in while he slept or while he went about his day.
He remembered their last kiss the other morning, standing in line to exchange the large coins of this country’s currency for a cup of tasteless lukewarm tea.
He could taste the blood in his mouth. The copper in the air. The sulfur from the Wens. That faint burn of atmosphere that always came when Zidian had completed its task. While he couldn’t see the team of Reapers combing the battlefield that was once Lotus Pier, he could feel them. A cold,but comforting,aura of those who lived on the lines between Life, Death, and Rebirth.
His nephew was in his hands, distraught, switching from his wolf to his human form without control. He would burn himself out, make himself sick, so Xichen cradled Jin Ling close, and sung to him, low, in the soft lullaby that had always lulled Wangji to sleep after their mother’s untimely death. He pushed his Will into the words and soon Jin Ling was in a healing sleep.
“Qingyang and Reaper Roe have them in the Cauldron Sleep,” Jiang Cheng said. “Qingyang has pledged to stand guard.”
“I will send part of our army to stand with her,” Xichen said as he carefully laid Jin Ling in the basket by his feet. “We should get the survivors out from the hidden portal under the throne.”
“They will be found in time,” Jiang Cheng said. “I cannot waste any more, not if a second wave is coming. We must go.”
Xichen nodded. “We could head into the East Woods and access the Ley from there.”
“No, my love,” Jiang Cheng said. “I will take Jin Ling with me by boat to the Southern Seas.”
It was not Xichen’s first choice, but Jiang Cheng should be with the Sirens now. “Then let me send a messenger to my uncle so he can again serve as regent.”
“Xichen,” Jiang Cheng said.
Xichen’s blood went cold at the tone. No. No, he refused.
He turned to Jiang Cheng who stood before him, a blank face, almost a stranger.
“No,” Xichen said. “I refuse it.”
“It’s for the best,” Jiang Cheng said. “The Winter Court cannot risk open war and it needs its king.”
“This king needs his husband. He needs his family.” Xichen grasped Jiang Cheng’s forearms, pulling him close, trying to keep him there. “We swore we’d walk together until the last beat of our hearts and breath in our lungs. Forever and a day.”
Jiang Cheng kissed him then. A bitter kiss of goodbye. A bile-inducing taste of a broken vow. A betrayal of all their kisses before.
“I refuse,” Xichen repeated, panic starting to overtake him. He knew Jiang Cheng’s powers. He knew his specialty. He knew what he could do. He never thought it would be used against him. “Don’t make me forget you,” he pleaded. “Don’t make me forget us.”
“It’s for the best,” his husband said, his voice finally breaking. “I have to protect you. I made a vow too, Xichen. I swore to your uncle that I’d keep you safe.”
“Your promise to me far outweighs any promise to him,” Xichen said. “I am your king, and I forbid you from doing this.”
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