i've finally exhausted my Link Click drafts, it's time -> i'm accepting requests for them too :D
the highly anticipated [four people asked for a continuation] pt.2 of the bleeding eyes Lu Guang fic✨ {could probably be read as a standalone tbh, but it'll make better sense if you read pt.1}
Qiao Ling and Cheng Xiaoshi's reactions who's excited for season three? >w<
Lu Guang was home alone.
He was far from helpless, even if the siblings were noticeably more offensively capable then he was, and he proved as much during the whole subway tunnel fiasco. Which Cheng Xiaoshi still kinda felt bad about, even if it was Lu Guang's desperation that drove him to switch places in the first place.
Regardless, Cheng Xiaoshi didn't like it.
Lu Guang hated being alone.
Normally- or, in the new normally- Qiao Ling would stay behind if his roommate was too busy to come out with him to run errands. But, given that it was nearing the time their city seemed to sleep, the two had decided it was better that he didn't go alone.
Cheng Xiaoshi didn't really like this either.
He hoped Lu Guang was doing ok, but he didn't really have the best track record of taking care of himself. Especially when left to his own devices.
"You're going to get wrinkles."
His sister poked insistently at his face. It sorta helped ease the uncomfortable wrongness itching his organs.
He bat her hands away regardless.
"Hey- cut it out, landlady! Not all of us need a twenty step skincare routine to avoid aging..."
Qiao Ling's offended gasp finally tethered him down to their surroundings; the amber flickering of a streetlight and the pale blue glow of a moth in moonlight. The comforting scuff of sidewalk under his feet.
Cheng Xiaoshi loosed a sigh, trying to dislodge the tangled knots that had made home in his chest. Lu Guang was fine. The siblings were going to get back to him, drink their milk tea, and enjoy a cheesy movie and everything was going to be fine.
"Are you worried about Lu Guang?"
He didn't bother responding this time.
"...Me too."
Thankfully, the studio was finally within reach. Cheng Xiaoshi's hands were full with their teas, so he left unlocking the door to his sister.
"We're back, Guang-Guang"
His call was met with silence. Awful, sticky, normal silence that did nothing to ease how tight his heart was feeling. He waited for his roommate to meander back from wherever he had disappeared to, which is what he normally did when he was too far from the entrance to greet them back at a comfortable volume, and set about freeing his hands.
Nothing.
No shock of white hair.
No quiet greeting to Qiao Ling as she made herself comfortable on their couch.
No soft footsteps coming down the stairs.
Cheng Xiaoshi made his way to their shared bathroom, trying to ignore the wheeze at the edges of his breathing.
Lu Guang was fine.
He knocks on the door.
"Lu? You in there?"
Silence. And then-
"Yeah."
The relief that crushes Cheng Xiaoshi's lungs is immeasurable. So dizzying that he feels like he could cry.
Lu Guang was fine.
"We're back. And we brought milk tea." "Welcome home. I'll be down in a second."
Feeling ten years younger, he heads back towards the stairs to claim his spot on the couch before his sister decides the whole thing was hers.
Cheng Xiaoshi almost misses the polaroid innocuously left outside the bathroom door. The white backing is the only part visible from where it oh so innocently lays.
It wasn't like Lu Guang to be so careless with their jobs, even less so with his own photos. Huh.
"Hey, Lu, you left-"
The photo is stained with brown red finger prints. Splatters of what had ruined their last couch coat at least a quarter of the waxy material, breaking apart and staining his fingers in a way that makes him sick.
Cheng Xiaoshi is jiggling the door handle before he even realizes he's moved.
"Lu Guang! Are you ok?"
This can't be happening. Not again, not so soon. Lu Guang was supposed to be ok-
"Open the door-!" "I'm fine."
He so clearly is not. The tremors that Cheng Xiaoshi had thought he was imagining before, or maybe were just side effects of being left alone so long, are more pronounced now. His soft voice is raised and panicked, cornered in a way Cheng Xiaoshi never wanted to hear directed at him.
"Let me in!" "Idiot, it's just a papercut!" "Then let me in-"
A papercut wouldn't make his unflappable roommate sound like that. Wouldn't make the sink run so frantically in the background. Cheng Xiaoshi doesn't have time to wait for Lu Guang to open it on his own.
He reaches up, fingers trailing along the very the top of the door frame until they catch on the thin metal rod up there. A good investment when the other took too long in the bathroom.
And a good investment when Cheng Xiaoshi's best friend could be in fatal danger again.
It takes far too long with his shaking hands to unlock the door, and he barely pries it open an inch before it clicks shut in his face. Lu Guang had thrown his body against it.
He had never been more grateful to be stronger than his twig of a roommate.
Cheng Xiaoshi throws his weight right back and manages to lodge his thigh in the opening before Lu can retaliate. From there, it's easy to shove it open the rest of the way and take his best friend into his arms.
It's a horrifying sight.
Thick, rivulets of burgundy drip out of his tear ducts, marring Lu Guang's pretty face into something out of those scary movies that Qiao Ling forces them to watch.
"Cheng Xiaoshi-"
Cheng Xiaoshi cups his face as carefully as he possibly can, trying to fight the panic clawing up his throat. He can't afford to freak out right now, not when the gentle touch he offers his best friend splinters him to pieces.
"What happened?" "I don't know- I don't know- this has never happened before. I don't- I was just looking through photos-"
Lu Guang's breath stutters and wheezes upon an inhale. His cattish grey eyes are wide an unseeing, or perhaps seeing too much, and he clings to Cheng Xiaoshi's arm in a way he only lets himself do when he's too deep in a panic to stop himself.
"It's ok- it's going to be okay. Lu Guang, breathe!"
He's so bad at this. So completely not equipped to deal with a panicking Lu Guang. Cheng Xiaoshi has never felt like worse of a friend than he does right now, unable to help the person that had carried him through many of his own panic attacks.
He forces himself to take his own advice and breathe. Lu Guang liked cleanliness, so- he could start there.
"It'll be okay."
Cheng Xiaoshi carefully keeps his grip on his best friend with one hand, rubbing between his shoulder blades to try and ground him to the present. With his other hand, he reaches for the rag left by the sink.
He hadn't noticed it before, too focused on just getting to Lu Guang and making sure he was alive, to really take in his surroundings properly.
Carefully, more gently than he's handled anything in his life, Cheng Xiaoshi soaks the rag and cleans away the blood- because he can no longer deny that's what it is- sticking to his best friend's face.
"It's okay."
Finally, after what feels of years of gentle words and even gentler ministrations, the blood stops crawling out of his roommates face. Cheng Xiaoshi had carefully settled Lu Guang's hand against his chest, hoping his pulse- however erratic it was- would bring some comfort to him.
It had worked in the past, when the nightmares Lu denied having threw him around too harshly and he needed real proof that Cheng Xiaoshi was alive. It seemed to be the right call.
Lu Guang's stilted breathing had evened out into something closer to a strenuous hike before finally calming into something just slightly too fast. Improvement was improvement.
"...I'm-"
Cheng Xiaoshi pulls his best friend into his chest to cut him off, realizing the two had somehow ended up on the bathroom floor at some point during this whole debacle.
"Don't you dare apologize."
Lu Guang keeps quiet on his chest.
Cheng Xiaoshi pretends not to notice his shaking shoulders.
