Work Text:
Chu Wanning was alone. The weight upon his side was not an arm thrown over him, but a weighted quilt pulled up to cover himself. He had closed his eyes, sinking underneath it as though it was a real person, alive and warm, arms enveloped around him...
It was indeed warm. His breath was warm, the quilt atop him absorbing his own body heat and echoing it back to him. In the haze of his fever, it almost felt like he was truly being held.
It was foolish to pretend such a thing, and yet in it Chu Wanning still found some kind of comfort; false and empty, a hollow replacement.
And his eyes burned, from fever or from emotion he knew not. Tears began to fall down his face; fresh, cold, and uninvited. He buried his face in the softness of the quilt, letting the seemingly never-ending tears soak into it. It had been a while since he did this, but recently he found himself going back to the habit of crying himself to sleep.
"Why...?" He whispered into the silence.
The person he was pretending to be in the arms of did not say anything. It was a mere quilt, and it could not give him an answer.
He wondered if he could deceive himself for just a little longer.