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Zhao Yunlan is listening alongside Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng while the new recruit explains her case board when the center of his vision abruptly goes blurry.
He blinks, but the blurry blob remains, blocking out a significant chunk of the board. What the hell?
The shape is iridescent around the edges, like a circle of smudged rainbow.
Zhao Yunlan blinks again and turns his head—the blob remains. The blurry shapes within its borders shift to reflect the fuzzy shape of the desks and windows as his gaze moves. So he’s just got a fuzzy spot in the middle of his field of vision for no apparent reason. He’s just been sitting here listening and talking, something he does several times a week, so what the hell?
He tries rubbing his eyes, but the blob stays, even when they’re closed. It seems like it’s starting to almost...pulse?
“Chief?” Hao Chunxiu looks at him curiously and Zhao Yunlan shakes his head, laughs a little.
“Don’t mind me. Keep going, you’ve been very thorough.”
She straightens up, not smiling but looking pleased nevertheless, and nods before carrying on. At his side, Chu Shuzhi gives him a look that’s simultaneously suspicious and curious.
Zhao Yunlan ignores him, waiting until he sighs under his breath and turns his attention back to Hao Chunxiu before closing one eye and then the other to test whether the effect is on both eyes or just one. The answer is both. Fucking weird.
What’s he supposed to do about this? Is it going to last? A small spike of panic strikes him. What if the blindness is coming back? What if Shen Wei went through all that for nothing?
He tries to panic quietly. He blinks again and again, hoping he’s just imagining it or—got something in his eyes or something. He tries to glance at his watch to see if it’s a strange time for him to make excuses and duck out, but he can only see the edge of the watch clearly. Fuck.
He’s been sitting sweating nervously for long enough that the pits of his t-shirt are wet when the weird blurry rainbow blob fades, leaving his vision clear. He nearly sags in relief before catching himself.
“You should follow up on the records,” Chu Shuzhi is saying.
Zhao Yunlan nods. “As Lao Chu says.” He’s going to risk a compliment even though he couldn’t repeat any of what she’s told them from the last several minutes. “This is—”
Pain spikes through his left eye socket like a hot nail, driving its way into his brain and Zhao Yunlan gasps, hands jumping to either side of his head.
“Chief Zhao?”
“It’s nothing,” he manages, then the nail throbs white-hot and Zhao Yunlan puts a hand over his eye because there must be a wound, something to explain the agony.
“No, it’s not,” Chu Shuzhi says sharply and Zhao Yunlan winces at the volume of his voice. The sound seems to pierce his ears, the vibrations going straight to the spot behind his eye.
He curls over his knees as the pain pulses in that same spot, reverberating down the back of his skull into his neck. It’s like nothing he’s ever felt. Like a hangover on steroids, worse than his stomach has ever been, worse than being stabbed in the wrist—being shot, maybe? He groans and the sound of his own voice makes the pain that much stronger.
“Zhao Yunlan,” Chu Shuzhi says, voice urgent. “What’s the matter?”
Zhao Yunlan shakes his head sharply and immediately regrets it. It feels like the nail explodes, shards piercing his skull from the inside and he feels abruptly sick to his stomach. He swallows desperately several times, trying to deny the nausea.
A wave of fear rolls through him on its heels. Is he dying?
A hand grips the side of his face and forces his chin up. Zhao Yunlan pries his eyes open for a flash of Chu Shuzhi’s shocked, concerned face, then he instinctively clenches them shut again. The lights, the sun coming through the windows—it all feels like needles in his eyes. “Hurts,” he manages to choke out and whimpers because it does , it hurts so bad.
“Boss, what’s wrong?! What happened?!” Da Qing’s voice is frantic, higher pitched than normal and it's like serrated knives in Zhao Yunlan’s brain.
“Shut up!” he demands, but he can hear the desperation and the waver in his own voice. He hurts so much he can’t bring himself to care how pathetic he sounds. He wants Shen Wei. He needs Shen Wei. Shen Wei can make it stop.
He can hear the team talking, their voices hushed, much to his relief. It’s not much, but it’s a reprieve and he’ll take anything he can get right now.
It’s next to impossible to focus on anything other than the throbbing and a wild mantra of please please please stop please please. He remembers he’s wearing a hoodie and he fumbles it up over his head, tugging the front down over his eyes, enveloping them in sweet darkness.
It doesn’t hurt less exactly, but the pain feels less sharp, less intense, and in comparison, it’s enough to make him weak. It hurts his neck, but he bows over his knees, pressing his face into his legs until the blackness is complete, and covers his head with his arms. The words of his team start to filter through again.
“We should call an ambulance,” Xiao Guo is saying, voice laced with anxiety.
“No ambulance,” Zhao Yunlan groans. He recognizes the shuffle of them all turning toward him. “‘S not that bad.”
“Not that bad?” Lin Jing echoes incredulously.
“His lordship—” Chu Shuzhi starts and Zhao Yunlan’s heart tightens painfully in his chest.
“Is he coming?” He sounds plaintive, pathetic. “Is Shen Wei coming?”
“I called him,” Da Qing sighs. A hand settles gingerly on Zhao Yunlan’s back and he guesses it’s Da Qing’s. “Boss, you have to go to the hospital. This isn’t normal!”
“When Shen Wei comes,” he says. He shifts because his back aches and another spike of pain drives into his skull. “Don’t wanna move,” he breathes, pressing his forehead harder into his legs. It hurts, but it’s a different hurt, seems to mute the throbbing ball of agony behind his eye a little.
“All right,” Da Qing agrees quietly. “At least you’re talking now. Can you give us some idea of what’s going on?”
“Headache,” Zhao Yunlan says. He blows out a slow breath. “Bad. Fucking—the worst.”
He feels queasy again, and he thinks it’s worse because he’s upside down. He breathes slowly again.
Why? Why is this happening?
“Is there anything else?” Da Qing wants to know.
“Noise, worse,” Zhao Yunlan grinds out. “Lights, worse.” He gulps as the queasiness surges and moans. “Gonna be sick.”
He oozes out of the chair and onto his knees, gulping in air in an effort to stop himself from throwing up—he hates throwing up, it’s horrible —and breathes out a fervent, “ Fuck ,” because the movement brings the pain back until it wars for his attention. He loses the battle against the nausea and heaves. It feels like his head is cleaving in two.
There’s nothing but the pain and his heaving stomach for what feels like an eternity, wringing him out until there’s nothing left. When he stops finally, his limbs are shaking, barely holding him, sweat making him feel clammy all over. He spits weakly and realizes someone managed to shove a garbage can under him before he lost it.
His head hurt.
“Here,” Da Qing says and a cup bumps his hand. Zhao Yunlan takes it blindly and takes a sip, washing it around his mouth before spitting it into the trash can with a wince. Everything makes it worse.
A rush of heat presses at the back of his eyes.
“Xiao Hao is cleaning the toilet. Chu Shuzhi is going to take you into the bathroom,” Da Qing says. “We can turn off the lights and it will be dark inside and then if you’re sick again you don’t have to move.”
Zhao Yunlan wants to protest but he feels terrible, so he just goes with it, letting Chu Shuzhi help him up and guide him toward the bathroom. “Shen Wei’s coming?” he asks again and Chu Shuzhi’s voice is pitched low when he replies.
“Yes. Breaking laws knowing him.”
“He didn’t gate,” Zhao Yunlan says miserably.
“He must not have been able to.”
He’s probably right, but Zhao Yunlan still hates it. Still probably not as much as Shen Wei, though.
It is dark in the bathroom and quieter and Zhao Yunlan immediately wants to lie down on the floor and bask in feeling even a fraction less pain. Chu Shuzhi helps him go down easy, near the toilet but not right next to it, which he’s grateful for because he can smell the cleaner and it feels like a needle being crammed up his nose into his brain. He groans and lies down on the cool tiles, pulling his hood over his eyes again.
He can sense Chu Shuzhi still standing over him.
“This is better,” he mutters. “Thanks.”
“His lordship will be here soon,” Chu Shuzhi says as if to remind them both. Then he steps quietly out of the bathroom and eases the door shut behind him.
Zhao Yunlan feels weak as a newborn all over and the cool tiles are making him shiver, but the sharpness of them against his face is helping beat back the stabbing in his brain. He feels like shit. His stomach aches are nasty but this—this is consuming. He can’t think.
He doesn’t realize Da Qing is there until his furry warm body curls up against his knees. The heat makes his stomach roil and Zhao Yunlan pushes him away with one knee. “Don’t,” he chokes out. “Can’t. Making me sick.”
Da Qing gives a very plaintive meow, but he doesn’t move to sit against Zhao Yunlan again.
At least it can’t get worse, he thinks and regrets it just a few throbs of his head later.
His stomach is starting to hurt now, too.
He whines because there’s no one here he cares about hearing him and curls up more tightly into a ball. Fuck. Fuck.
Where is Shen Wei? This has to stop, he can’t take it, it’s too much.
“Boss,” Da Qing says softly and sounds tortured.
Zhao Yunlan stifles a sob behind one hand, the other pressed to his gut. He feels sick again and his head feels like its fracturing into tiny pieces and it’s too much .
The tears building up behind his eyelids break free as the queasiness gets to be too much and he lurches upright, grabbing hold of the toilet seat and dragging himself over it as he starts puking again.
His abs ache as they spasm violently, but it’s nothing compared to his goddamn head. He wants to be put out of his misery.
His face is wet with tears and cold sweat when he finishes and he shivers violently, the tiles feeling icy beneath his legs even through his jeans. He coughs and spits and then flushes the toilet before it can get him going again. Then he slumps there, unwilling to lie back down since it feels like maybe that was just a first wave. Has he ever been this miserable?
Behind him, the bathroom door opens with the faintest click, but the narrow beam of light that comes in with it is like a gunshot to the face. He flinches, burying his face in the crook of his elbow.
“Shut it!” Da Qing hisses and he hears quick footsteps, then the door clicking quietly shut again.
“Zhao Yunlan?”
Zhao Yunlan’s stomach lurches, his heart squeezing in his chest, and another rush of tears trickles down his face, soaking into his sleeve. “Shen Wei?”
“I’m here,” Shen Wei says urgently and Zhao Yunlan feels the faint pressure of his hand on his back. A sob tears its way out of his chest.
He reaches back, hand catching around Shen Wei’s sweater vest, and then he lets go of the toilet, twisting around, and falls into Shen Wei’s chest, trying to fold himself into Shen Wei’s lap. “It hurts, it hurts, please , Shen Wei, stop it.”
“Zhao Yunlan,” Shen Wei whispers, horror-struck.
Zhao Yunlan’s breaths stutter out of his chest and he presses his knuckles into his forehead until an answering bolt of pain beats back the pain deeper inside for a moment. “Please,” he begs and he knows it’s terrible, he knows he shouldn’t, even as he says, “kill me. Just— End it, Shen Wei, please.”
He hears Shen Wei’s breathing hitch violently and he hates himself for asking that, but he can’t .
Shen Wei puts cool, shaking hands on his forehead and Zhao Yunlan lets out a shuddering breath, his tightrope-tense muscles loosening just a little. Oh, they feel good. That feels good .
Then Shen Wei calls dark energy into them and Zhao Yunlan can see a dim purple glow through his eyelids, but it only hurts a little. The cold strangeness of the dark energy feels almost numbing and he sags into Shen Wei’s lap. Fuck, oh fuck, he’ll never complain about anything ever again.
When the strange tingle of the dark energy fades, the headache is still there, but greatly lessened. Zhao Yunlan feels like he can think again. He clutches at Shen Wei’s waist, not yet willing to risk drawing his face away from Shen Wei’s stomach where it’s dark and quiet and safe. “Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you,” he breathes, squeezing Shen Wei tighter.
Shen Wei’s stomach heaves under his cheek. “Zhao Yunlan,” he says, and he sounds wrecked, his voice threadbare and giving.
He’s completely forgotten about Da Qing until the cat’s damp nose nudges his arm. “Did he fix it?” he asks tentatively. “Are you okay?”
“I didn’t,” Shen Wei says and his voice breaks, goes whispery halfway through. “It’s not something I can fix, but I did what I could.”
Zhao Yunlan finally risks turning his face partially away from Shen Wei’s stomach. Relief nearly bowls him over when the light coming in from under the door causes the throbbing to throb a little harder, but nowhere near what it had been. “It still hurts like a bitch,” he says, “but it’s better. So much better, thank you, baobei.”
Shen Wei runs feather-light fingers through his hair. “If you can bear it, we’ll go to the hospital now.”
Zhao Yunlan nods even though he’s exhausted. If Shen Wei couldn’t fix it they have to. Who knows what the hell’s going on. And it still hurts; they can give him pain medicine. He wants to be where there’s heavy-duty pain medicine if it comes back.
He feels the displacement of air as Da Qing switches back to human form, then the two of them help him get shaky legs underneath him. They stand there for a moment while he tries to figure out if he’s got the strength to stay upright. “Let me hold on to you,” he says to Shen Wei and Shen Wei just slips an arm around his waist, giving his support easily and without question.
“Here,” Da Qing says and Zhao Yunlan jerks back slightly as the outline of Da Qing’s hands move suddenly toward his face. Da Qing pushes a pair of sunglasses onto his nose and it dims the light coming from under the door so it barely hurts at all.
“Ah, good thinking,” he says. Then Da Qing moves to open the door and Zhao Yunlan gingerly follows along as Shen Wei steers him toward it. He squints in the overwhelming brightness outside the bathroom, turning his face automatically into Shen Wei’s shoulder. Shen Wei brushes a kiss against his forehead, his free hand moving to cup at the side of Zhao Yunlan’s face, blocking some of the light. Someone else, Da Qing most likely, pulls up his hood again. “This is terrible,” Zhao Yunlan remarks into Shen Wei’s shoulder.
“He’s talking in sentences again,” Da Qing says and it sounds like his voice is moving up and down, “that must have helped a lot.”
“He couldn’t speak?” Shen Wei says, voice coming out sharp.
“Just words, not like he normally would.”
“You calling me wordy, Fatty?”
“You are,” Da Qing shoots back at him.
Shen Wei’s arm curls a little tighter around Zhao Yunlan’s waist. “Come,” he says quietly, “let’s go to the hospital.”
Walking with his face pressed to Shen Wei’s shoulder isn’t practical, so Zhao Yunlan eases away from it, keeping his head tilted toward the floor so his hood blocks as much light as possible. There’s a lot of whispering and sotto voce conversation going on as they cross the bullpen to the doors and Zhao Yunlan knows the team is going to have a lot of questions. Right now though, he doesn’t care.
Shen Wei hands him up into the Jeep and Zhao Yunlan hunches down in the passenger seat, pulling the hood down over his eyes and engulfing himself in the soothing darkness. He hears Da Qing and Shen Wei both get in and he has to take a slow breath when the car rumbling to life unsettles his stomach.
“Yunlan?” Shen Wei says.
Zhao Yunlan waves him off. “Feel a little sick, that’s all. Let’s go.”
He spends the drive with his eyes closed, grimacing now and then as the nausea surges and fades, fortunately never enough that he feels like he’s going to puke. He’d wreck his car. His head still aches fiercely, but it’s entirely bearable compared to the splitting pain he’d been in before Shen Wei arrived.
When they arrive at the hospital, Shen Wei helps him down and then refuses to release his hand. Zhao Yunlan doesn’t mind. He doesn’t want to look around because it only makes everything hurt more, so it’s nice he can just close his eyes and duck his head and let Shen Wei lead him.
Shen Wei and Da Qing answer all the questions they can, listening while Zhao Yunlan describes the blurry blob and the sudden attack of pain. Zhao Yunlan laughs when he tells the doctor he thought for a second he’d been shot or hit in the head or something and Shen Wei’s fingers tighten painfully around his hand.
“What you’re describing sounds like a migraine with aura,” the doctor says at last. “You’ve never had them before though?”
Zhao Yunlan shakes his head. “No, never.”
He’s comfortable enough right now—the hospital’s been very accommodating, keeping the door closed as much as possible, putting him in a room without another occupant, covering the windows and turning out the lights. They’d also given him an ice pack and that’s resting across his forehead right now, numbing the worst of the pain.
“It’s unusual to start getting migraines for the first time at your age. Has anything changed recently that may have caused it?”
Has anything changed?
Shen Wei’s hand tenses in his. “He started a new medication a few days ago. For his gastritis.”
“Oh,” the doctor says, “what medication?”
“Dexlansoprazole,” Shen Wei says immediately and Zhao Yunlan opens his eyes to look at him in surprise. He knew that off the top of his head?
“Ah, okay,” the doctor says nodding. “We’ll keep you here, do some more tests, but I’m guessing that’s the culprit. An adverse reaction to the medication.”
Zhao Yunlan raises his eyebrows. “A hell of a reaction.”
“Sometimes that happens,” the doctor says. “Assuming we don’t find anything else, you’ll be fine. Migraines are hell, but they’re not dangerous. We can give you pain medication to make you more comfortable and an anti-nausea medication that will help you sleep.”
Zhao Yunlan nods. “Yeah—that. Let’s do that.”
The doctor huffs a quiet laugh. “Okay, then. Take it easy and I’ll be back in just a little bit with the medications.”
Her footsteps move to the door and there’s a brief burst of noise as she slips out into the hall. The dark and the quiet eases the throbbing Zhao Yunlan’s been trying to ignore for the last ten minutes while they talked.
“How do you feel?” Shen Wei asks, voice hardly loud enough to be considered a whisper.
“I’ve been better,” Zhao Yunlan admits, “but I’ve also been worse.” Shen Wei’s thumb stroking back and forth across the back of his hand tempts him to amend that to “much worse.”
He curls onto his side and Shen Wei catches the ice pack as it slips off his forehead. “Put it on my neck,” he mumbles and Shen Wei obeys without question, settling it at the nape of his neck, propped in place by a pillow. Zhao Yunlan sighs and squeezes his fingers. He’s in a kind of hazy place between the pain and his exhaustion when he murmurs, “That was scary.”
Shen Wei squeezes his hand, his other coming up to stroke the knuckles across Zhao Yunlan’s cheek. “It was frightening to see, so I can only imagine how it felt.”
“‘M sorry I scared you.”
Shen Wei sighs and presses a lingering kiss to Zhao Yunlan’s cheek, resting his fingers over the pulse at his neck. “There’s nothing you could have done differently.”
“Still sorry.”
Shen Wei rested his head on the pillow, his forehead cool against Zhao Yunlan’s and soothing. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to fix it. That I couldn’t—” his voice chokes off momentarily. “That I couldn’t take your pain away.”
“You did, you did take it away,” Zhao Yunlan insists, pressing into Shen Wei’s forehead. He cracks open his eyes and his heart twists up in a knot at the sight of Shen Wei’s eyes, red-rimmed and glittering in the dim.
“I couldn’t heal you completely,” Shen Wei says, anguish pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“You can’t do everything, baby,” Zhao Yunlan says. Shen We doesn’t reply to that, his next breath shuddering as he draws it in. Zhao Yunlan can’t do much, so he does what he can and holds on.
He’s started to drift off when the door opens again and Shen Wei sits up. Zhao Yunlan doesn’t particularly want to move or—anything really.
“All right, we’ve got 20 milligrams of Toradol for you and five milligrams of ondansetron for the nausea. These are both injections.”
Zhao Yunlan nods but doesn’t move otherwise. When she asks for his arm, he gives it. He’s barely aware of the needle pricks.
“We’ll give those about a half-hour to kick in and then I’ll be back to check on you again, all right?”
“Mm,” Zhao Yunlan says, drawing Shen Wei’s hand up against his chest. He must doze for the next half hour because when Shen Wei shifts and he pries open his eyes a little, the doctor is back.
“How are you feeling?” she asks.
Zhao Yunlan considers that and realizes with a rush of relief that the pain seems to have dimmed somewhat. “Better,” he says, although his mouth doesn’t seem to want to work quite right.
“Great,” she says. “Then we can discharge you and let your husband take you home. Drink fluids, get lots of rest. You’ll probably feel wiped out for the next day or two. I’ll send in a scrip for a few more doses of Toradol for you in case you have another attack while you’re on the dexlansoprazole. See your primary in the next week or so to see if they think it’s worth continuing or if you want to switch to something else. Any questions for me?”
Zhao Yunlan shakes his head fuzzily, but he hears Shen Wei’s voice, low and soothing so he must have questions. He fades out.
“Zhao Yunlan.”
Resurfacing is difficult. “Ngh,” he says because anything else is too much effort.
“Let’s go home,” Shen Wei murmurs and Zhao Yunlan allows him to coax him out of the bed. Everything is fuzzy, and his thoughts are sluggish.
He follows, eyes closed more often than not, as Shen Wei leads him back to the Jeep. His head still hurts a little bit, but all he wants to do now is lie down and slip into the oblivion of sleep.
He doesn’t remember the trip home or scaling the stairs to their apartment.
The first thing he notices when he wakes is the warm glow of sunlight. The second is that it doesn’t hurt . A slow wave of euphoria rolls through him, filling his belly, and Zhao Yunlan stretches tentatively, testing for pain. There’s none. He feels heavy and a little sleepy even though he just woke up, but there’s no pain. He laughs softly, overwhelmed with relief.
“Zhao Yunlan?” Shen Wei says softly and Zhao Yunlan turns his gaze, finding Shen Wei sitting cross-legged beside him in the bed, his back against the headboard. His face is pale, dark circles under his worried eyes.
“It’s gone,” Zhao Yunlan says and laughs again. “It’s gone, oh, I’m glad that’s over.”
Shen Wei’s hand cards through his hair. “Me too,” he says solemnly.
Da Qing hops up on the bed, carefully picking his way around Zhao Yunlan, not touching. “You’re better?”
Zhao Yunlan hooks an arm around him and hauls him in up against his side. ”Yep. All good now.”
Day Qing starts purring, pressing in against his ribs.
Zhao Yunlan looks around, noting the light, Shen Wei’s clothing—he's wearing one of Zhao Yunlan’s t-shirts and a pair of his joggers. ”How long did I sleep?”
”Almost fourteen hours.”
Zhao Yunlan gapes. “So many!”
Shen Wei nods. “The doctor said you would be tired.”
“I’ll say.”
He notes how exhausted Shen Wei looks and curls his arm around Shen Wei’s closest knee. “Did you stay up all night?”
Shen Wei nods. “I didn’t want you to wake up in pain and have to manage it by yourself. And I know the doctor said you would be fine, but…” He swallows.
“I’m okay,” Zhao Yunlan assures him, petting his knee because it’s the only thing within reach.
Shen Wei sucks in a trembling breath, his eyes brimming with tears, and Zhao Yunlan pushes upright, heart twisting in his chest.
He scoots closer, tucking his arm around Shen Wei’s waist. “Shen Wei? Baby?”
Shen Wei presses the back of his hand to his quivering lips and closes his eyes. “You asked me to kill you,” he manages finally, voice clotted with tears.
Zhao Yunlan sighs and rests his forehead on Shen Wei’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have done that. Ah, Xiao Wei, I’m sorry.”
A short sob escapes Shen Wei’s throat and he puts his arms around Zhao Yunlan, pulling him close, one hand cupping his jaw. “You were in so much pain you asked me to end you ,” he says with so much anguish it hurts Zhao Yunlan to hear. “I have never heard you like that. Never. It was—” Zhao Yunlan feels his wet lashes graze his own cheek.
“I’m sorry,” Zhao Yunlan whispers, aching. He clutches Shen Wei, rocking back and forth slightly, tracing one hand lightly through his hair, pausing now and then to stroke the soft skin of his throat with his thumb. Da Qing steps over Zhao Yunlan’s lap and wedges himself in the tiny space between them, purring like a machine.
The shoulder of Zhao Yunlan’s t-shirt is soaked through by the time Shen Wei finally draws back a little. His face is damp, red, and puffy and lined from being pressed into Zhao Yunlan’s wrinkled shirt. He’s in pain and it hurts to see. Zhao Yunlan can only imagine how it must have been for him to find him like he was yesterday, curled up sobbing like a child in the SID bathroom. His chest clenches and he presses a gentle kiss to Shen Wei’s cheek, brushes away some of the damp trails on his cheeks with his thumb. “I’m sorry, baby.”
Shen Wei takes his hand, holding it between them and staring down at it. He lifts it, kisses the knuckles. Then, voice hoarse, he says, “I want you—to be able to ask for that if you need it. It—ruined me, and if I ever had to follow through—” His voice strangles into silence. “But if you’re suffering and I can stop it—”
“Pain makes you stupid,” Zhao Yunlan says fiercely. “Don’t listen to me. Do everything else—anything else before that. It would kill you!”
“Seeing you like that nearly killed me,” Shen Wei says in a low voice.
Da Qing meows, soft and small in agreement. “That was—horrible,” he says and Zhao Yunlan puts a hand on his back, his eyes heating. He hates that he put them through this.
“It was bad,” he agrees quietly. “It’s all right now, though. I’m better and we have medicine, we know what to do if it happens again.”
Shen Wei winces. “I pray that it doesn’t come to that.”
Zhao Yunlan huffs humorlessly. “Me too. But we’re prepared if it does.”
Shen Wei nods and Zhao Yunlan presses a kiss to his forehead, then drops another softly on his mouth. “You’re exhausted,” he says. “And I’m tired again. Let’s sleep.”
They shuffle around until they’re lying down, Shen Wei resting with his head on Zhao Yunlan’s chest where the sound of his heart beat and the warmth of his body can comfort him until he’s able to sleep.