Chapter Text
The village by the seaside had never been a good idea, from a human standpoint.
There were indeed predators that lay in wait beneath the waters ready to drag any unsuspecting fool beneath the waves. Sandwiched between the beach and the forest where even more creatures lurked, the small village never stood a chance at survival.
Or at least, it ought to have died out years ago if there was true malice there.
The relationship between humanity and the creatures that could so easily feast on their flesh was a complicated one and not one without its hiccups over the years.
Song Lan doesn’t have a strong opinion on humanity, whether negative or positive, but he certainly didn’t think they were all that trustworthy. There were those, like Xiao Xingchen, who were delighted by people and found new ways to love them with his impossibly wide heart.
Song Lan had always been more reserved in his affections.
Song Lan was young when he first saw Xue Yang.
A toddler far too close to the water who would doubtlessly become lost in the waves without a single adult nearby to save him. It was the sort of tragic thing that would make Xiao Xingchen cry if he heard about it.
Song Lan watched from behind a rock as the child walked closer and closer to his own death with an uncomfortable feeling building inside of him.
Why was the child alone?
Song Lan was older than this human toddler and his grandfather would never have allowed him to wander in a dangerous place alone. Every time that they visited human cities, his grandfather kept Song Lan safely tucked against his side and taught him everything patiently.
This child didn’t seem to even have any anticipation that someone might look for him.
It was an unpleasantly lonely sight.
The child stepped just one step too far, over a sudden drop and where the undercurrent was particularly strong and his little head disappeared beneath the waves. The sky was a beautiful blue that would continue for an eternity even after his death.
To this day Song Lan had no idea why he moved.
But before the child had even been fully submerged, Song Lan reached a hand out and gripped him by the arm, pulling him back up.
The sensation sent an unpleasant shock through him. The boy was warm and his skin felt strange, not at all what Song Lan was used to, and he had to resist the urge to shove the kid away.
“Don’t play here.” Song Lan said to the coughing child and pushed him back to shore. Song Lan stalked away before the child had even finished coughing up the sea water.
Did the kid even realize how close he was to dying? He just stared dumbfounded into the ocean with a stupid expression on his face.
Song Lan stayed nearby and hidden until the stupid kid finally disappeared back in the direction of the village.
It was a brief and meaningless meeting that made Song Lan’s skin crawl.
“I wanna eat candy too.”
Song Lan closed his eyes and rested his head on the other side of a boulder as he stifled the urge to reply to the inanities that always spewed to the empty air. It became an odd habit that he justified with the idea that it was to keep the brat from drowning.
Every day that Xue Yang wandered down to the seaside, Song Lan would swim to a nearby hidden spot and listen.
Sometimes, the kid would do something reckless and nearly get himself killed. Sometimes, the kid would just talk to himself like he did now. Sometimes he’d sit near the cold water until he was shivering.
Song Lan wanted to yell at him a lot of the time.
“I heard if you run errands for the dirty old man, he’ll pay you in candy. I think I can do it. I know I can do it. I’m really strong and tough.”
Xue Yang would do that a lot. He’d talk himself into doing something that he was anxious about before proceeding to praise himself. It was all Song Lan’s power to suppress a derisive snort. Xue Yang’s ability to praise himself was a little bit ridiculous.
Though sometimes Song Lan wondered if there was anyone else to tell Xue Yang these things.
The next time he saw Xue Yang, the boy was crying so hard that he was laughing.
He laughed and laughed and laughed and let his mangled hand rest in seawater until he exhausted himself.
Every bone in his hand was broken and the pinky was gone.
Xue Yang did not have any candy.
Song Lan thought for the first time that day that he might actually hate humans.
The child fell unconscious right there and Song Lan did what he could.
It wasn’t much. He could make sure the kid didn’t drown, he could examine his injury, and he could look around the beach for any forgotten clothes or towels that he could use to warm him up.
It was a hopeless feeling that Song Lan hated.
He went home to his grandfather feeling wretched after Xue Yang finally left the beach and felt all the more wretched when he realized that Xue Yang wouldn’t have a grandpa to go home to. Or a home to return to at all.
Song Lan had never been interested in visiting human cities and villages but he asked his grandfather just this once to take him.
His grandfather didn’t ask him why he wanted to buy candy and some basic first aid supplies, simply indulged him.
When Xue Yang came back to the beach, he found what seemed to be an abandoned bag of candy left in his normal spot, half buried by the sand, and further along the beach he finally had something to disinfect his hand with.
Not that it helped much, Xue Yang seemed to think that dunking his mutilated hand into sea water was proper treatment. Absolutely insane.
By the time Xue Yang started showing more violent tendencies, Song Lan had already given up justifying to himself why he kept coming back to the beach again and again. Guiding the idiot to the surface when he did something dumb and listening to his endless tirades.
It was just a part of his normal.
If Xue Yang was at the beach, Song Lan was sure to follow.
When Xue Yang started to wash blood off of his skin that wasn’t his own, Song Lan just wanted to shake him until the fool saw sense.
When the body dropped from the upper world into the lower one, Song Lan made sure that it vanished with the tide.
Xue Yang was a sight standing waist deep in the water, blood coiling around him and doubtlessly attracting all sorts of carnivorous creatures that wouldn’t dare press too close so long as Song Lan remained nearby. His eyes fixed up at the moon as the waves cleaned away evidence of his crimes and revealed just how much of that blood was his own.
He laughed, because Xue Yang always laughed when he was upset, and looked down at his own asymmetrical hands as though seeing them for the first time.
Song Lan thought about what it might be like to wrap his arms around that lithe figure. He thought about a lot of things.
Most of all, he thought about Xue Yang’s quiet words, whispered as though they were a secret and a promise.
“I deserve more.”
And then, with far more confidence.
“I’ll get more.”
It was foolish in the extreme but it reminded Song Lan of Xue Yang when he was younger, talking himself up until he was able to be brave and swallowing back his every fear because his life was in constant threat.
It wasn’t that Xue Yang didn’t understand that he should be afraid, it was that he couldn’t afford to care.
Song Lan waited until Xue Yang disappeared back to the village before seating himself in Xue Yang’s usual alcove and traced the rock where Xue Yang had carved a childish picture. Song Lan could hardly decipher what it was meant to be, Xue Yang hadn’t been a skilled artist at the time and he’d been carving into rock with rock like the insane fool that he was.
But he could remember Xue Yang describing the art to the waves and just what it had meant to Xue Yang. The sincere expression of his heart, mangled and gnarled as it was, carved into rock.
Xue Yang was better at carving and drawing now. He often sold shells that he’d carved or drawn on for ridiculous prices to any fool he could flag down.
Song Lan sort of wanted to buy one, if he only had the money.
Song Lan sort of wanted a lot of things, if only he could make up his mind.
In the crisp air of dawn, Xue Yang returned with a devilish grin that assured the world that he was still a force to be reckoned with and one that wouldn’t cave no matter how he struggled.
Song Lan’s gaze lingered and something inside of him ached.
Xue Yang was reckless. Dangerous. An idiot. Violent. Insane. Song Lan hated him sometimes.
Xiao Xingchen would ask about him when they met up, the flowers that were a part of him fluttering with interest and asking so many questions. Song Lan knew that Xiao Xingchen liked humans and Song Lan liked Xiao Xingchen so it had felt harmless. Normal even.
Until the day Xiao Xingchen found him with flushed cheeks and a bright smile and told Song Lan that he’d met Xue Yang.
Touched him.
Tasted him.
Song Lan didn’t know how to describe why he felt so angry. He didn’t talk to Xiao Xingchen for a whole week after that.
And for some time after that, Song Lan was forced to confront his own feelings. Forced to come up with a way to settle the unease in his heart.
Song Lan brushes a strand of Xue Yang’s hair away from his sleeping face and frowns at him.
He really hadn’t planned this. Certainly not like this. If he allowed himself to imagine something like this, it was supposed to be gentle.
Although, he supposes that nothing between him and Xue Yang had ever been gentle. And Xue Yang wasn’t an easy person to approach gently. Xiao Xingchen had tried and he kept running into walls.
Still, it isn’t what Song Lan intended. He just isn’t good at controlling himself when Xue Yang is concerned.
Xue Yang let out a little sound in his sleep and nuzzled closer to Song Lan’s chest, the bruises that marked him all over standing out starkly against his pale skin.
Song Lan held him closer and closed his eyes.
The warmth of a human against his own cold skin is still something uncomfortable and borderline unpleasant. Xue Yang is soft in places where Song Lan would expect scales or thorns and he’s so stupid and fragile sometimes it feels like if Song Lan looks away for just a moment, that Xue Yang’s bloated corpse will float to the shore with lifeless eyes.
Xue Yang lets out a small sleepy whimper when Song Lan accidentally holds him too tightly.
“Don’t go anywhere.” Song Lan warns when Xue Yang squirms in his arms.
“‘Mm not.” Xue Yang protests, moving just enough so that he can kiss a gill on Song Lan’s neck.
It’s a shockingly tender gesture from Xue Yang of all people. Song Lan gently guides Xue Yang’s lips to his own and kisses him hungrily.
He probably can’t be gentle with Xue Yang and that’s a little bit dangerous. Maybe for both of them. But when he tastes the moan off of Xue Yang’s lips, he can’t help but seek out more.
It is ridiculous how easily Xue Yang accepted all of this. Ridiculous how pliant he is in Song Lan’s arms.
Ridiculous how when he thought about just how easily that stupid human child could have drowned all those years ago, his heart just about breaks in his chest.
The most ridiculous part of all is how Song Lan needs this uncomfortable warmth more than any words could fully describe.