Title: Catastrophe
Fandom: The Lost Tomb Reboot
Rating: Teen
Length: 1220
Summary: After learning about Wu Xie's illness, Pangzi talks with Xiaoge.


Pangzi sat at Tianzhen’s bedside for a long time after he’d fallen asleep, the drugs pulling him under. Finally he sighed, got up, walked to where Xiaoge was standing—still by the door, as if afraid to come closer, but his eyes never strained from Wu Xie, not even for a moment—grabbed him by his bicep and pulled him along.

Or tried to.

Xiaoge usually just went with it when Pangzi tried to, well, manhandle him, so Pangzi tended to forget just how strong he really was. But now—now he didn’t budge. Still didn’t look away from Wu Xie, either.

Pangzi got it, he really, really did, but also he had to talk to Xiaoge without Tianzhen being there—

Which would be all their conversations, pretty fucking soon, and damn it, but Pangzi was nowhere near prepared for any of this, and it was just easier to think of how annoyed at being kept in the dark he was than about what awaited them.

“Come on,” he said. And then, because he was tired and this close to crying and unable to crack jokes all the time, he added, “Please.”

Xiaoge didn’t nod, didn’t say anything, didn’t look at him, but his posture softened, just the little bit, and when Pangzi tried to pull him again, Xiaoge went. Pangzi steered them both outside—it was a hot and humid tropical night, enough to make him sweat the moment he stepped out, but it was still better than the oppressive quality of the hospital corridors.

Xiaoge took a few more steps, paused, raised his head to stare at one of the windows—Tianzhen’s, no doubt.

Pangzi should’ve noticed. Tianzhen was a good liar these days, but Xiaoge—he didn’t talk, as always, but whenever he wasn’t with Wu Xie, he was as cold and unapproachable as when they’d first met. Pangzi didn’t mind; he had stopped being bothered by the aura Xiaoge put out ages ago, not when he learnt just how soft he really was underneath it, not when he knew he was Xiaoge’s best friend. (Tianzhen didn’t count. Pangzi doubted any human language had words for what exactly Wu Xie was to Zhang Qiling.)

But he still should’ve noticed, that there was a reason for this colder than usual behaviour, for all the good that would’ve done him when Tianzhen had been determined to hide his condition from everyone.

“How are you holding up?” Pangzi asked, as if Xiaoge would ever answer that. But Xiaoge finally looked at him, for barely a second, almost surprised at the question. Pangzi frowned. “I’m mad at him, not at you.” Pangzi paused. “Actually, I’m mad at him for you, too. I can’t believe he made you keep his secret—well, obviously you wouldn’t tell anyone, but to tell only you, like he doesn’t know—”

Xiaoge made a little punched out sound, so uncharacteristic of him Pangzi was shocked speechless. Then Xiaoge actually turned away from him—from him and from the window. This was important. Pangzi walked around him until they were face to face again, and grabbed him by his shoulders so that he wouldn’t move away again.

Xiaoge looked absolutely fucking desolate, in a way Pangzi had never seen him, not even when he’d been amnesiac and lost and encountering only traps and disappointment instead of answers about his past; not even when he’d come to see him before leaving behind the Bronze Gate.

“Xiaoge . . .”

“Three months,” Xiaoge said, voice hoarse.

Three months—three months until the end of their personal world, only Xiaoge would have to go on, wouldn’t he, far longer than Pangzi, until he forgot again—and then remember again, at some point, alone in the world, and forgot again, and Pangzi didn’t know how many cycles like this Xiaoge had already lived through but he did know what had happened to him when he hadn’t had Wu Xie and Pangzi by his side.

And now Tianzhen was dying at forty years of age, decades too soon.

Pangzi had witnessed what Tianzhen without Xiaoge was like, during those horrible ten years. He didn’t want to witness Xiaoge without Tianzhen.

Losing Tianzhen was going to be beyond horrible; losing both of his friends didn’t bear thinking about.

Pangzi had pulled Xiaoge out here to talk, to reassure him, selfishly so because if he was taking care of Xiaoge then he didn’t have to think of his own heartbreak—but that had been a stupid plan; Xiaoge was so obviously shattering on the inside, only held by a thin thread of a resolve not to let Tianzhen see him like this, that Pangzi’s heart broke even more.

“You’re not alone,” Pangzi told him. “You won’t be alone,” he promised.

Xiaoge shuddered, all over, and Pangzi immediately stepped forward and hugged him, engulfing him in a tight embrace. Xiaoge was deceptively slim, seemed almost fragile in his arms.

“You can’t cry. If you cry I will cry.”

But Xiaoge just kept trembling, and his hands clutched at Pangzi hard enough to bruise. He stayed silent, even now, but Pangzi could feel moisture on his neck where Xiaoge pressed his face, and tears pricked at his eyes too.

He'd seen Xiaoge at his most vulnerable when he'd lost his memory. He'd never seen him cry before.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, holding Xiaoge close, but he knew not even an earthquake would make him let go before Xiaoge wanted him to. No one but Tianzhen would understand this instinct to protect someone as strong as Xiaoge appeared to be, but that was why the three of them were the Iron Triangle. They knew each other, beyond the masks that everyone else saw.

(The two of them, so very soon, and then just one—and Pangzi loved Xiaoge, and knew he was loved in return, and he was still terrified that without Wu Xie, Xiaoge would go to Changbai Mountain again, go behind that fucking gate and never return again in an attempt to deal with his grief. How much of a life without Wu Xie did Xiaoge even remember, at this point?)

The sun didn’t rise yet, but it was getting brighter when Xiaoge stepped away. He looked towards Tianzhen’s window again, as if scared he’d wake up without them—impossible, with all the drugs he was fed last night, but Pangzi understood the sentiment all the same. He wiped at his eyes with his sleeve and peeked under Xiaoge’s hood—his eyes were red-rimmed, his cheeks still wet. It made Pangzi’s heart hurt.

“Let’s get you cleaned up and go back to Tianzhen,” he said.

Xiaoge followed him to a hospital bathroom, splashed his face with cold water and dried it with his own sleeve, then pulled his hood even lower down than usual.

Pangzi half-expected him to stay in the doorway again when they returned to Tianzhen’s room, but Xiaoge surprised him. He sat at the edge of the bed, his eyes fixed intently on Tianzhen’s face, looking for all the world as if he was trying to memorize his features, etch them into his memory so that they could never be forgotten again.

Tianzhen didn’t wake, but he moved through his sleep, reached out a hand in Xiaoge’s direction, and Xiaoge took it into his.

Unwilling to disturb him, Pangzi took his earlier place by the doorway.