Chapter Text
The food that Fang Duobing has made is edible. That is not a criticism of it. It’s merely a statement of fact. Food is either edible or inedible. It’s just fuel to keep you alive. Eat what you can, when you can, because who knows when you'll have the opportunity to do so again.
It’s something that Di Feisheng had lived with for so long, had grown up with, that it has become an almost impossible mindset to break. It’s strange to think of his time when he was only A-Fei, sitting and eating with them at this same table. How food had been different, how it had mattered in different ways than it does to him currently, now his past is once more a part of him. How is it that A-Fei is both himself and a stranger who had inhabited his body for a time?
He’s too tired to think about it. Not that he’s in the right frame of mind right currently either if he’s honest. So he takes rice into his bowl and starts to eat.
“Just rice? It isn't healthy to eat only one thing all the time,” Fang Duobing says, when he realises that he’s not taking anything else. Taking some of the pickled vegetables from the serving dish he places them into Di Feisheng’s bowl. “You’re already hurt. You don’t want to get sick too.”
Fang Duobing is kind. Kind in a way that makes him brave rather than soft. Such determined care is not something that Di Feisheng has experienced, and he doubts that before Fang Doubing had inserted himself into Li Xiangyi’s life, that he had either. It’s hard to accept, and he suspects, after a time, even harder to let go of.
There is a kind of terror in allowing yourself to be that vulnerable. Not that Li Xiangyi had had much of a choice, the worsening state of his health had often forced him to accept being looked after. For himself it would have to be a conscious choice, and for the moment it is too much to contemplate.
So he eats and lets his mind wander, only half listening to them talk about what needs to be bought next time they go shopping. Outside, the earlier rain and sleet has turned to snow, large soft flakes falling, blanketing the ground, smoothing off the rough edges of the world, while everything around him inside the Lotus Tower feels soft and warm. He can feel some of the nervous tension he’s been carrying start to fade, a slow ebbing now that the needs of shelter, warmth, food and safety have been met.
He can feel Li Xiangyi’s eyes on him, curious why he’s come to them tonight, concerned still too, but not willing to press him for information in front of Fang Duobing.
Finally with their meal done, Li Xiangyi makes a show of yawning and stretching. “It’s late, Xiaobao. Why not go to bed?”
“Like you should be?”
“I will, I will. You’ve done so much for me these last few days, you’ve hardly stopped. You must be tired.” Reaching over, he pats Fang Duobing’s hand reassuringly. “You can let me and A-Fei catch up for a little longer. We aren’t going anywhere.”
All the same, Fang Duobing doesn’t go up to the guest room to sleep until he’s washed and dried up everything from supper, retrieved Di Feisheng’s wet clothes from where he’s left them on the floor and hung them up to dry, checked on Fox Spirit, checked the doors and asked Li Xiangyi if he is alright between each one of these activities.
He’s scared. It’s painfully obvious, but perhaps worse is the distinct sense that Fang Duobing seems to believe he’s managing to hide it from them. Di Feisheng isn’t good with comforting words. What experience of such things has he had? Yet saying nothing will likely result in him not leaving them alone until Li Xiangyi is asleep in bed.
“I won’t let him go anywhere,” he says, not entirely certain if he currently could, if Li Xiangyi put his mind to leaving. “If he tries, I’ll sit on him. Now go to bed. You claim he’s your shifu? Start listening to him when he tells you what to do.”
“Sit on me? Really?” The indignant tone is at odds with faint flush crawling over his cheeks. “Are you both going to bully me in my own home? What have I done to deserve this?”
“If it makes you rest,” Fang Duobing replies, I’ll tell A-Fei that he can sit on you as often as he likes.”
Li Xiangyi almost chokes on his tea. Spluttering, going red, he waves away any assistance. “Xiaobao, how can you say such things?”
“Easily.” There is a smile bordering on smug as he adds. “Anyway, why are you embarrassed about sleeping? Everyone does it.”
Di Feisheng gets the distinct impression that for all Fang Duobing is young, he is definitely far from innocent in such matters. It’s just those big brown eyes that make him seem so. What that means for the future of them living here together, he’s not sure. It doesn’t have to mean anything, but it could. It’s a thought for a different time however.
He doesn’t say anything more. Instead, he lets Fang Duobing fuss, making sure the blanket around Li Xiangyi’s shoulders isn’t letting in a draft, and there is both tea and warm wine in easy reach in case he gets cold.
Finally however Fang Duobing goes up and they are left alone together for the first time since the night in the wedding chamber. There are so many things that Di Feisheng had planned to say or do, yet now the moment is here he feels frozen in place, unable to do more than stare at how Li Xinagyi looks in the soft, golden lamplight.
“Are you going to tell me what actually happened?” Li Xiangyi asks, taking the wine from where it’s been warming and handing it to him. “Or are you going to make me guess? You can’t just stare at me and hope it somehow gets into my head.”
“I could ask the same,” Di Feisheng replies, then tries the wine. It’s warm and mellow, something to be enjoyed with company. If he is lucky, he thinks, perhaps it will be enough to finally let him have a meaningful amount of rest. And if he is very, very lucky perhaps the most awkward of the questions that might arise between them might be left unasked.
“About?”
Feigned ignorance isn’t a look at suits Li Xiangyi, and Di Feisheng is in no mood to play games about this. “About why you didn’t tell him you were cured.”
“It wasn’t safe.” He doesn’t meet Di Feisheng’s eyes or ask him how he knows. “The emperor needed to believe I’m not a threat to him. That Xiaobao and his family aren’t either. No one else should die because of me.”
“You hurt him.” He expects denial, but Li Xiangyi nods, small and tight, and somehow that’s so much worse, because it means it’s still not the whole truth. “He thought you were dying.”
Li Xiangyi looks away and a cold feeling of dread forms in the pit of Di Feisheng’s stomach. It’s worse. The worst. “He thought you were dead.”
Another small nod.
He feels sick. Furious on Duobing’s behalf too. Because he knows all too intimately how that particular loss feels, even if on both occasions it has proved incorrect. It’s only that Li Xiangyi looks so wretched about it, eyes going glassy and red, that he doesn’t snap back at him.
“I didn’t mean it to happen. Not that part.” Li Xiangyi’s voice isn’t steady as he answers, nor does he try to force it to be. “It turns out it was a lot more convincing than even I thought it would be.”
“What did you do?” Anger and raw terror that somehow the effects of the Styx flower have been undone make the food and wine churn uneasily in his stomach. He grabs Li Xiangyi’s arm pulling him closer, nothing less than feeling his pulse will ease the fear that has taken hold.
The internal energy is nowhere near the levels it should be, but it is stable, steady. He can feel his own Windy Poplar circulating side by side with Li Xiangyi’s own Yangzhouman. The Bicha poison is truly gone. He releases his wrist, the utter relief leaving him feeling unexpectedly cold and shivery.
“I’m alright. Guan Heming has had his needles in me half the day.” He rubs his arm, a rueful little smile on his lips. “I gave him those needles. See how he repays me? There are pin cushions with fewer holes.”
“You deserve it.” Even with the knowledge that what Li Xiangyi has done is temporary and almost gone, doesn’t help and Di Feisheng shoves the wine back towards him, unable to drink any more for the moment less he truly is sick. “Idiot. Have you any idea what losing you would do to him? To-” To me. Even now he bites back the words, the vulnerability of uttering them, of admitting it both to Li Xiangyi and to himself is too much.
“I know.” He picks at the hem of his sleeve. “He shouldn’t forgive me, but he will. He always does. I should never have let him stay.” He shakes his head, slow and sad, unable or unwilling to say more.
Di Feisheng doesn’t push for any further details of just what it was Li Xiangyi had done that had been so convincing that it had fooled both the emperor and Fang Duobing. He doesn’t need those images to join the ones already held in his mind.
They pass the wine between them in silence for a time.
“I’ve answered your question,” Li Xiangyi says, passing the wine back to him. “Don’t you think it’s your turn now?”
“It’s nothing.” Because compared to what Li Xiangyi has been through, it is nothing. How can a few nights without sleep be comparable to near death?
Looking down, his eyes move from the bandage on Di Feisheng’s wrist, then to the one on his ankle. Finally he reaches out, brushing a finger tip across the darkened skin beneath his eyes. “Really? All this is nothing?”
“I can’t sleep.” It’s a simple admission, yet understated as it is, it feels a lot.
Li Xiangyi holds out his hand, waiting for the wine to be handed back to him. “Tonight or in general?”
Di Feisheng nods. He truly doesn’t want to have this conversation, but he’s in no state to get up and leave. Even if he were, continuing to push on and depleting his internal energy until he collapses from exhaustion isn’t a valid option.
“A few nights?”
He nods again and this time hands over the wine.
“More than a few, don’t you think? Is it-“ Li Xiangyi stops seeming to think better about what he was going to say and passes the bottle of wine back to him instead, without having drunk any more himself. “This is the worst drinking game ever. Just be honest with me, when did you last sleep for a whole night? Tell me, and we can think of something better to do.”
“Here.” He feels even more pathetic admitting it, but he wants the conversation to be over. “When I last slept here.”
“What? No, That’s far too long.” Li Xiangyi’s reaction is unguarded, the concern in his voice clear.
Di Feisheng shrugs. “I don’t need much sleep.”
“You need more than that.” Reaching out, Li Xiangyi looks as if he is going to take the wine again, but instead places his hand alongside Di Feisheng’s, close enough to touch. “Could you really not sleep there? Were you so busy?”
“There was a lot to do.” Defences to check, rebuilding to organise, those loyal to Jiao Liqiao who’d survived the attack to be removed. Bodies to be buried. A lot of them. Some dead from the attack, others who’d been killed because they were loyal to him and not her. Some of them had been there from the first days of the Alliance. Not friends, he’s never really had those, but people he has known for a long time, ones who were trusted and reliable. Gone.
Li Xiangyi taps the back of his hand lightly. “A-Fei?”
“It’s done. I’m not going back. I’ve left Wuyan in charge. I’m not needed.” Was I ever? Beyond the initial formation of the Jinyuan Alliance he’d delegated the running to others. They hadn’t needed him, at least not as anything more than as a weapon with which to threaten other sects. How ironic, that you made yourself into exactly the sort of weapon that Master Di had intended even while running from it.
It’s an unpleasant revelation and one that he has absolutely no idea what to do with.
“Stepping back from it, it’s not easy,” Li Xiangyi says, gently stroking a finger against the side of his thumb, bringing his attention back to the moment in hand. “I didn’t have a choice. If I had?” He shakes his head. “I don’t know who I’d be now.”
“You.” That is one certainty that Di Feisheng has been clinging to, that there is some innate part of Li Xiangyi that will persist regardless of what name he calls himself. He wonders if there is any part of himself that Li Xiangyi views in the same way? Is there some quintessential thing that no matter what he does it will shine through?
“You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“Because you are.”
“A thing?” There is a definite teasing edge to Li Xiangyi's voice as he tries to lighten the mood.
“Good. Did I not tell you that you like being a hero?”
Li Xiangyi shakes his head, more amazed than disbelieving. “Ten years and you remember every word?”
“Why would I not?” How could I not? When that night had for so long been my last memory of you? How empty it had felt, how hollow a victory, even before the awful truth had been discovered.
“Why indeed.”
“Back then, I never wanted you dead.” It had been unthinkable, as preposterous as tearing the sun from the sky or making the sea boil dry. “I told you we’d talk after the fight. I wanted peace as much as you did.”
“I know.” There is an absolute weariness about how Li Xiangyi’s shoulders suddenly droop. “Back then I didn’t…” He stops, the pain of betrayal, of what Shan Gudao had done to him, of the depths of the malice his martial had held for him, turning his eyes glassy red.
“It’s in the past,” Di Feisheng says, wondering if it truly can be. He wants it to be. He’d clung to the past when Li Xiangyi had been present only in memory. Now he’s here alive and real in front of him. Alive and going to stay that way.
“And the future?” Li Xiangyi says eventually, their hands still touching, the wine beside them forgotten. “What of that? Where will you go?”
“I can stay here.” A statement? A request? A plea? Even Di Feisheng doesn’t know. All he knows is his time here simply as A-Fei had been the happiest in his life. Despite the Wuxin Huai poisoning, the uncertainty of it all, the missing memories and vicious headaches caused by his memories trying to return, it’s a time he wants to return to.
“So certain, A-Fei.” There’s a gently teasing edge in Li Xiangyi’s voice and softness in his eyes, that suggests denying will not happen. “Where will you sleep?”
“Wherever you allow.” He’ll sleep on the floor if need be, while they reorganise sleeping arrangements. He’s slept in far worse places.
“Xiaobao has got used to having the guest bed to himself,” he muses, the teasing tone still very much present as he tries to lighten the earlier heavy mood.
If he is going to tease him, then Di Feisheng feels entitled to do the same. “Then I’ll have to sleep with you.”
Li Xiangyi swallows audibly, eyes widening for a moment, before he says with no conviction at all, “Who says I want that?”
“You asked me to take you to bed before.” To be precise he’d asked him not to fuck him on a table, but saying that here, surrounded by the domesticity of the Lotus Tower, feels too crude.
“Oh it’s like that, is it?” Li Xiangyi says, trying to sound offended but failing utterly. “Have you come to claim your reward?”
Di Feisheng knows it’s meant to be flirtatious, but even as a joke the idea that he might demand sex as some kind of payment for saving his life turns his stomach, and he says sharply, “I want no such reward. Only that you live on.”
There is genuine confusion on Li Xiangyi’s face before he realises how what he’s said must have sounded. There’s a moment where it looks as if he is going to apologise, then he retreats to safer ground, saying, “Nothing? I do seem to remember you wanted a fight.”
“You don’t.”
“That’s true, I don’t.”
“So why mention it?” Di Feisheng wonders if Li Xiangyi is being purposely aggravating, or if this rapid bounce between happy and sad, teasing and annoying, is a sign that he’s not actually coping as well with things as he might want them to believe.
If he wants to go over the well trod ground of request and refusal so be it. It almost feels like a game at this point. “You know I don’t mean to kill you, so why still refuse me? Are you too embarrassed to lose in front of Fang Duobing?”
“I won’t fight you.” He runs a fingertip through a droplet of wine on the tabletop. “ I can’t. I still can’t.”
“Can’t? What do you mean, can’t?” The fear that had receded when he’d taken his pulse returns. Had he missed something? “You’re healed. It worked. I made it work.”
He pats his hand. “You did. You did.”
“Then what is it?” Di Feisheng grabs his hand, holding it tight, less suddenly he decides to run. “You just need more time to train? We have time. I can wait. I can help you.”
“Time isn’t…” He sighs, stopping and then trying again, “The fight you want, I can never give it to you. I can never be like I was,” Li Xiangyi says softly, sad now rather than playful or teasing. “The Bicha poison almost killed me. If you’d waited…” He stops, takes a rather shaky breath, then continues. “The damage it did, some of it, maybe a lot of it, won’t ever truly heal. Guan Heming said it was a miracle that what you did worked at all. It shouldn’t have. It should have already been much too late.”
There is a rushing sound in his ears and for a moment, Di Feisheng thinks he might actually faint. He’s felt his pulse, he knows the poison is gone, but fear refuses to leave him. “You aren’t…”
“No more so than anyone is,” he says, voice light once more. “None of us live forever.” The small smile that accompanies it is real, even if there is a kind of melancholy resignation to it about living on. “Can you stop looking so worried now? So I can do this.”
“Do what?”
Li Xiangyi doesn’t answer, instead he leans in and kisses him. There’s nothing of the frantic desperation that had filled them back in the wedding chamber, just warmth and the absolute certainty that he knows what he’s doing.
His hand rests on the back of Di Feisheng’s neck, fingers stroking down under the collar of his clothes, brushing bare skin.
Di Feisheng shivers at the touch, and he feels Li Xinagyi smile against his lips, warm and so very fond. Although the fingers don’t move, don’t try to tease any further reaction from him, a second and then a third shiver rolls through him all the same. He tries to tense against them, not wanting to lose this moment between them, but it is if his body has decided that allowing that single shiver of pleasure gives it permission to finally free all the others that he’s suppressed, those of cold and grief and fear.
There is a pause, then the hand on the back of his neck drops lower, until it rests between his shoulders. Then it pulls him close, guiding him so he can hide his face against Li Xiangyi’s neck.
Too exhausted to fight, he goes with it, letting go of what has been weeks, years, in the making. No tears will come, although whether that is a relief or not he cannot tell. He feels breathless, nauseous from the storm of emotions inside, and so cold that makes his bones ache.
Li Xiangyi doesn’t speak, opting to rub his back, trying to offer what comfort and reassurance he can, but not really seeming to know what to do. Finally he wraps his arms around him, hugging him tight, like he never wants to let him go.
If he has ever been held like this, Di Feisheng cannot remember. Perhaps in his early childhood years there had been someone, a family, who had cared for him and wanted him. Yet those memories are lost to him, scoured clean by the horrors of the Di Fortress, maybe even purposely stripped from his mind by Master Di so he would have nowhere to run to.
It’s just another thing that he’s never let himself mourn. One amongst countless others. Because no matter how hard he tries, it’s never enough, he’ll never be strong enough to keep himself or those he cares about safe. The tears that Di Feisheng didn’t think he’d be able to shed come in rush. It feels like drowning. Half choking on them, grasps at Li Xiangyi’s clothes, clinging to him. It doesn’t help, the weight of everything that has been piling up drags him under.
How much time has passed, before he comes back to himself, Di Feisheng isn’t sure, but finally the breathlessness and tremors fade. The chill is more persistent but does also gradually lessen. He shouldn’t fall asleep here, it won’t be comfortable for either of them, but he’s not certain he’s got the energy to move.
“A-Fei?” Li Xiangyi strokes his hair, brushing it back from his face. “Are you awake?”
Di Feisheng raises his head. The dim lamplight hurts his sore, tear swollen eyes, so he closes them again. He feels awful. Cold and still faintly sick, his body aching with exhaustion, now that the nervous energy that has been keeping from rest has finally ebbed away.
Another gentle touch, his hand remaining where it will block some of the light, he asks, “Do you want to go to bed?”
He should sleep. He wants to. But the memories of the past are too close still, too likely to spill over into his dreams and turn them into nightmares. His throat hurts and he doesn’t trust how his voice might sound if he were to speak, so he shakes his head.
“In that case,” Li Xiangyi says, putting an arm around him, helping him to his feet. “Let’s watch the snow.”
It doesn’t hold any interest to him, but neither does he want to lose the closeness they’ve just shared. Limping, his ankle protesting once more at being made to work, Di Feisheng accepts the offered support and goes with him.
Sheltered from the snow that is falling by the overhanging roof, they sit side by side in the open doorway to the small deck at the front of the tower. Their breath mists in the cold air, but with Li Xiangyi’s fur lined cloak over their shoulders it’s warm enough for now.
“Did you know I’d grown to hate the winter,” Li Xiangyi says, his hand seeking out Di Feisheng’s beneath the protection of the cloak. “I could never get warm and nothing would grow.”
Di Feisheng closes his eyes, exhausted, but content as long as Li Xiangyi is by his side. “Yet you wish to sit in the snow.”
“This is different.” He gives his hand a small squeeze. “I’m warm. I’ve eaten food with friends. What could I find to hate in it now?”
Eyes still closed, he rests his head back against the wall. He feels a few windblown flakes settle on his cheeks. “What indeed?”
With a soft, contented sigh Li Xiangyi leans his head against Di Feisheng’s shoulder, and doesn’t reply.
They sit shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, content in each other's company and the peaceful winter's night around them. The night deepens, the snow increasingly thick upon the ground, until finally it is too cold to sit and watch any longer.
There is no need for words now. Just a nod between them of agreement and Li Xiangyi helps Di Feisheng to his feet. His ankle gives a warning twinge of pain, but nothing as severe as before. It will heal, given time, rest and care.
Returning to the warmth of the kitchen, they sit at the table once more. They drink the tea that Fang Duobing had left for them, in comfortable silence, letting it chase away the cold of sitting to watch the snow. Then finally they make their way to bed.
Li Xiangyi’s bed is softer than his own back at the Jinyuan Alliance. A concession, Di Feisheng realises now that he’s sitting on it, to how much his body must have ached when the poison still flowed in his veins, and how trying to get comfortable must have often been impossible.
It is also not really big enough for the two of them. At least not without sleeping in each other's arms, bodies spooned tight together. Not that he’s about to complain about such a thing, having Li Xiangyi so close all night long feels like just what he needs to finally be able to rest.
There is no objection from Li Xiangyi either, who has already decided he is going to take the position of little spoon in the arrangement, telling him, “Lay down, then I can get it.”
Di Feisheng has barely had time to lie down before Li Xiangyi joins him in bed, wriggling back against him, until they are pressed close from shoulder to thigh. It is probably just as well he’s so very tired, he thinks, or such close contact squirming would have made parts of him very awake and active indeed. There will be other nights, he tells himself, when they can take their time and enjoy such things.
Slowly, Di Feisheng feels his breathing synchronise with Li Xiangyi’s. He closes his eyes, face half buried in his hair and lets himself follow him into sleep.
There is a certain quality to the light of a dawn during snowfall that is different from any other weather. There is a muted softness to everything, so that even if it’s not possible to see the snow falling, the way the light falls through the windows and the way the sound of the world is dimmed makes it clear all the same.
Di Feisheng wakes to this soft light slowly creeping into the Lotus Tower. He’s not sure what has woken him at first, only that there isn’t the feeling of restlessness or panic that so often accompanies sudden waking.
There is the creak of wooden steps being carefully and lightly walked, followed by the same footsteps above. Fang Duobing returning to his room after checking that they are both still there. That they are both still alright.
If Li Xiangyi were awake, Di Feisheng knows that he would want to check that his Xiaobao had also managed to get some rest. He hopes that he has; he’s got a far too intimate knowledge of how long and miserable nights are when you cannot rest.
He lays there, listening for more footsteps and to the slow, sleepy breaths of Li Xiangyi sprawled mostly on top of him like a heavy and warm blanket. It’s strange. He doesn’t feel trapped by it. It’s not the same as being pinned down in a fight. He feels safe. Protected. Content. It’s an unaccustomed feeling, but it is one that decides he wants to experience more of.
Di Feisheng is under no illusion that there will be painfully early mornings or late nights where he wakes sick with fear or ready to fight some phantom of his mind. Or ones where it’s Li Xiangyi or Fang Doubing who do so. It’s going to take a lot of mornings like this for so many years of hurt to loosen its hold on him, on all of them.
They have time now for all those mornings to take place, to build a future that doesn’t have to mirror the past, and for that he is grateful.
He watches him, listens to the soft, almost snuffling sound as Li Xiangyi noses against his shoulder. Finally, relaxed and warm, Di Feisheng falls asleep again, body demanding he catch up on much needed rest.