[曦澄 | XiCheng]: The Fear Of Falling In Love [~PART 1~]

NOTE:

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Artwork is used with author's permission.

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Please watch this if you ever plan to  even consider  a pregnancy in your life.

Because, ughhh, no, thank you. 

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The next weeks were strange and hazy for the both Masters of the Cloud Recesses. 

Lan Xichen felt some sense of urgency,  as if he had a lot of tasks on his checklist and very little time to do them all. The time before the baby arrived was getting shorter and shorter. He was excited, and scared, and fully realized that their lives were going to change once his son arrived in this world. Yet, he still had a lot of help, as now the household had grown immensely and it was impossible for a single person to run it all. However,  in the end he was the one to supervise it all, and make the final call in all situations. He knew that his husband would have helped him with all this if the circumstances were different, but now he was was doing his best to shield him from almost everything outside of food and sleep.

Inevitably, both of them were on the watch-out, and almost always alert. Patrols and all guards had been doubled yet again, and now the House looked like a small fortress, perched up in the mountain, in terms of fortification. But if the enemy was already within the walls  –  only cunning would expose him, a clever trap. Zewu-Jun was not too worried, as he knew that the Gusu Lan Clan was loyal to him to the death, and Sandu Shengshou was largely beloved among his people too; the servants would die for them gladly, especially now, with the new Young Master on the way. 

He felt protected enough, trusting his men, and he knew that his husband was protected too, to a large extent; if anyone had had the plan and purpose to assault them  –  it would have been done already. No, this was a scouting mission, observation.

What was more, after their crazy night of basically performing in front of the open bedroom window, things seemed to have calmed down. He suspected that the show had been a bit too revealing  –  the spy was not stupid, and probably got scared, and now knew that he was onto him.

The nights were something of half-wake, half-sleep, and almost always exhausting  -  Jiang Cheng's heat was nothing like he had ever seen in his life. But he was adamant that his husband rested, and slept through the daytime too, so they truly and fully met and lived only at dawn and at dusk.

*** 

Jiang Wanyin's head was in some haze of sugary clouds. He lived through the last month half-asleep. He was heavy, and getting heavier, and it was getting very hard to move. Zewu-Jun was so busy during the days that he would often sulk and miss him, craving for him so much that he would often cry himself to sleep  –  not because of sadness, but because of the sheer missing, the helplessness and emptiness he felt inside. Whenever they were together, their love was warm and all-consuming, and they would make love for hours. 

He was fascinated, dizzy with desire, as now all pain was gone altogether  –  only pleasure remained; becoming one was effortless, easy, smooth.

The bones of his pelvis were already starting to grow apart, which hurt too, of course  – his body was preparing for the arrival of the baby  –  and his hips were becoming truly like a woman's. His belly was huge, now that he finally had started the final month of the pregnancy, and he did his best to be drinking a lot of liquids, just like the doctor had prescribed. 

This meant a couple of things, though: sweating was profuse, and peeing was as frequent as blinking; the baby was tossing and turning, pressing on his bladder, and he would growl and wake Lan Huan multiple times at night to help him get out of bed and go pee.

The other fun thing was that his hands and feet were getting ridiculously bloated and he was often looking at them with morbid fascination  –  it was as if he was looking at somebody else's limbs. His body seemed too full of water for some reason, and this took effect also in their sex. Once he got aroused  –  there was no stopping it. Saliva would drip from his lips whenever he opened his mouth, and he would get so wet, and sex would be so slippery, his juices flowing, literally, that the bed sheets had now to be changed almost every morning. 

Zewu-Jun was mesmerized by it, loving all of it, and just laughed at Jiang Cheng's frustration about all this.

He was constantly hungry, or sleepy, or grumpy, or horny, or all of those together. This was his life now. And he was terrified that the last one  – their intimacy  -  was to be forbidden in the final month  –  a month without sex seemed like a horror tale to him. He remembered the physician's words too well, but somehow doubted that either he or Lan Huan would manage to endure a month of abstinence. They had grown so close that they didn't really need words between them any more. He would wake up at night, gasping and whimpering, and Zewu-Jun would know exactly what he needed, and would kiss him deeply, love him passionately. 

He loved him with all his soul for that.

***


The one good thing he was grateful for was Lin Shou-Yi. The young man was of invaluable help to him, so much so that he gave up on the idea of getting a maid to help him in his everyday tasks. Lin Shou-Yi would be there to keep guard at his door, and run errands for him, and help him with almost anything. He felt that their housekeeper was a little unhappy about this, suspicious of the new best boy, frowning at this arrangement too often, but he suspected that she was just jealous that he had more trust in the young soldier than in her.

Jiang Cheng felt good; so many people were now considering him the center of their lives. He even received a couple of letters from his brother, asking how he was, which was rare and surprising in itself.  Wei Wuxian was worried, perhaps even more than him. He suspected that Zewu-Jun had mentioned their security problem to Lan Wangji, and now both their brothers were anxious for news from Gusu. 

He promised Lan Huan that he would write to  Yùlán  with updates and news, but he never did  –  sitting for too long was a challenge, as sitting meant peeing and getting up from the low stool, and this now was Hell for him.