Work Text:
Zhou Zishu blinks, his vision slowly coming back to see Wen Kexing in front of him, except... that can't be him, can it? He doesn't have white hair.
And then his vision clears, and it is Wen Kexing, and the white looks surprisingly good on him, and-
And then his hands start to slip.
Zishu catches those wrists in his hands, about to say something, but then time seems to slow down. It has to be time itself slowing, right? Because... because if not, then that means it's Lao Wen's pulse that is slowing.
That means it's Lao Wen's pulse... stopping.
That means it's Lao Wen's hands slipping out of Zishu's own, again, and then with a rush of air back into lungs he hadn't even realized had stopped breathing, he is rushing, scouring the text sprawled between them, because surely you wouldn't need a second person for this only for them to die, surely there must be something they missed when they read through it, surely-
Surely he's not watching Wen Kexing die. Not again.
It's only when he feels something wet hit his hands that he realizes he's crying. What a hypocrite I've turned out to be, he thinks, vision bouncing between the dots on the paper his tears are leaving with increasing frequency, all those times I told Chengling not to cry for me, yet here I am.
His fingers join in the trailing of splatters on paper, only to catch on-
To catch on-
Surely they wouldn't need a second person for this only for them to die. Surely there must be something they missed.
Then much like his fingers had caught on the edge of a piece of paper that had gotten stuck to its neighbors, Zhou Zishu's breath catches in his throat.
-----
Wen Kexing's chest feels... heavy. And warm. At first he thinks he must be panicking or going mad again, but then his breath evens out, but the weight is still there. Well, it's still on the right side of his chest. There's a weight on the right side of his chest, and it's warm, and his arm is bent at a weird angle and why can he even feel any of this when he should be dead?
Unless
Slowly, carefully, he blinks his eyes open, taking in the ceiling above him. He shifts to sit up, only to realize he can't use his right arm, because the reason it's bent at a weird angle is because someone is holding onto it. Someone with their head on Kexing's chest, puffs of air ghosting across the hand clutched in that person's own. Someone with a familiar white pin in their hair, one that should have been stuck in a lock under an avalanche. He can move his left arm, because it's not currently being cuddled by an absolute buffoon, so he does, reaching up to trace the edges.
"Shishu!"
Footsteps follow the exclamation, a bouncy, excited rhythm that can only belong to-
"Chengling?"
"Shishu! You're awake!" He looks like he's going to start rambling, but he trails off as he takes in his master, soundly asleep on Kexing's chest. He shifts, a small step forward, only to lean back, before leaning forward again, this time with his arms hovering in front of him. He steps around his master carefully, then back around to where he was, only to pause with a troubled look on his face. "Shishu... I want to help you sit up, but... I don't want to wake shifu."
And Wen Kexing can't help it. He laughs, inadvertently solving their problem as his A-Xu startles awake, and briefly, somewhere in the back of his head Wen Kexing thinks that he could get used to this. To Chengling's laughter at A-Xu's bewildered expression, to the hug Chengling pulls them both into. To A-Xu blinking the last dregs of sleep off, and smiling softly when they've finally been released from their disciple's bear hug as he ran to go get food. To his A-Xu's hand gently resting on his cheek, and the whispered "We live and die together."
---
Bonus:
"And I looked up, only to find that I had lost your shishu-"
"Quit telling everyone I'm dead!"
"Sometimes I can still hear his voice."