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Go ahead, Love,
take every last bone.
Make of me
what you will.”
― On the Eighth Day Adam Slept Alone
Meng Yao’s posture is perfect as he turns his back to Nie Mingjue. He strides out of the hall with easy, steady steps. You could balance a tea service tray on his head, and the full cups would not spill a drop. He’s holding his head high, his hands tight against his body, not quite fists but something close.
When he stumbles, his hand twitches, as if he wants to reach out and balance himself, to lean against the wall and breathe, to clutch at his robes, press a fist against his wound. Instead, he recovers, the twitch having lasted for barely a second. It would have been invisible to anyone not paying close attention.
Except, of course, Nie Mingjue is watching.
“Meng Yao,” he says as the other man reaches the door, his hand finally allowed to seek support from the dark wood.
Meng Yao turns.
His face is pale, almost of a colour with his grey robes, but there is an unhealthy flush high on his cheeks. That, too, is of a colour with his robes, and Nie Mingjue watches as the pale pink stain darkens steadily.
Meng Yao doesn’t waver. He stands very still, the tension in his hands and jaw the only sign of the pain he must be in, the weakness in his limbs.
“Nie-zongzhu,” Meng Yao says, turned towards but not looking at him, warm brown eyes fixed to a point over Nie Mingjue’s left shoulder.
Nie Mingjue wants to snap his fingers in front of Meng Yao’s face.
The hall is silent after the sound of their names, as if speaking the one after the other is a spell, cancelling all sound and leaving in their wake the stillness of a grave.
What else is there to be said between them now, except an acknowledgment of who they are, with all that it entails.
Except, standing still seems to be a struggle, for Meng Yao.
Meng Yao blinks, and Nie Mingjue counts the seconds until he manages to drag his eyes open again.
Too long.
Did he hit his head as well, in the struggle with the Wens?
Nie Mingjue is too far away to look at his pupils. And besides, Meng Yao isn’t looking at him.
“Your wound,” Nie Mingjue says, as if it needs saying.
“Wounds heal,” Meng Yao replies.
“Not all of them.”
Meng Yao shrugs, the rising of his sharp shoulders pulling at his wound, if Nie Mingjue was to judge the way his face contorts into a grimace before he can force it blank again.
“Let me--” he starts, and stops.
There is a man, dead.
He wasn’t a great man. Nie Mingjue will admit, in private, that he wasn’t even a particularly good man.
But there are rules in war, set in stronger stuff than the Lan’s stone wall of laws.
If not, they are just animals.
There is a man, dead, by a hand that shouldn’t have been raised against him in battle. There is deceit, betrayal, and the sharp sting of grief-stricken disappointment. If Nie Mingjue only grieved for the good men, the great men, he wouldn’t be their leader. He grieves them all, names inscribed in the core of him like talismans.
The dead man stands between them, his hand reaching out to stop the words in Nie Mingjue’s throat.
“Come here, Meng Yao,” he says. His mouth tastes like blood.
It is a testament to the severity of the wound that Meng Yao doesn’t demur, doesn’t protest. Nie Mingjue expected him to be witty about this, sharp, in the way he used to be when Nie Mingjue was being irrational.
Instead, he walks, less steady than before, proud as an emperor.
Instead, he sinks to the floor and almost manages to make it look like it’s not a collapse.
His robes are ruined, now. The tear alone could have been mended. The blood alone could have been scrubbed off in freezing water with a stone. Together, it is beyond saving.
“Let me see,” Nie Mingjue says, and tries not to think about the last time he said those words to the man in front of him.
Meng Yao smiled then, with dimples and a hint of teeth. He is not smiling now.
The shoulder, when revealed, is just as Nie Mingjue remembers it. Pale skin, soft. The bones under it are sharp and fragile like a bird’s.
When he reaches the wound, Meng Yao stops. The bloody fabric sticks to the wound, and Nie Mingjue knows the sting of it.
“Let me,” he says, big hands replacing Meng Yao’s.
He pulls the fabric away carefully, but swiftly. Meng Yao hisses in a breath, squeezes his eyes shut. There is a tear in the corner of his eye.
There is still a dead man between them, which means that Nie Mingjue can’t wipe it off with his thumb, can’t cradle Meng Yao’s jaw in his palm, can’t do anything but turn his eyes down, and look at the torn up, bleeding mess that a sword meant for him had created.
“You don’t need to do this,” Meng Yao says, in the pause of Nie Mingjue’s hands. “I am not your responsibility.”
“Shut your mouth,” Nie Mingjue says, voice rougher than he means it to be. It’s difficult to speak comfort with a dead man’s hands around his neck.
Something ugly flashes in Meng Yao’s eyes, and he looks at Nie Mingjue then. Glares, almost. Challenges, always.
The skin around his wound is red, inflamed. It feels searing hot under Nie Mingjue’s fingertips. He presses around the edges of the wound and Meng Yao hisses, again, in pain.
“I’ll fetch hot water,” Nie Mingjue says. “This needs to be cleaned, and dressed.”
“I can just,” Meng Yao starts.
“They are busy,” Nie Mingjue says. “There are many who are injured, after today. They deserve care.”
“And I don’t,” Meng Yao says. If it’s a question, it’s not one for Nie Mingjue to answer.
“I will dress your wound,” Nie Mingjue says, and Meng Yao grimaces as if Nie Mingjue had sunk his nails at the edge of his skin, and squeezed into the meat and bone of him.
When he stands, to fetch the water and the bandages, Meng Yao stays kneeling on the floor. Nie Mingjue’s shadow falls over him, heavy as a grave.
“The light is bad down there,” he says. “Can you stand?”
Meng Yao tries, legs curling under him, pushing him up. His ashen face wet with the effort.
Nie Mingjue reaches down, reaches under, a hand supporting Meng Yao’s back, the other under his knees. He’s light, but stiff in his arms, heavy as a leaden shackle around his heart, and Nie Mingjue is tired.
They stand like this, for a second.
Everywhere Nie Mingjue looks, his dead captain is there.
He thought to take him inside, dress his wounds by the gentle lights by his bed. Holding him was a mistake.
Nie Mingjue forgets, sometimes, that people aren’t Baxia, to fall straight into place when he lets go of them, fly into his arms when he has need.
He places Meng Yao on his throne, gently. Meng Yao’s eyes are wide as saucers, an expression so comical that Nie Mingjue wants to joke, to tease.
As if you’ve not seen this view before , he could say.
Don’t get too comfortable now , he could say.
Do you remember that night that we got tipsy on Yunmeng liquor and you sat here and I kneeled there and you said--
You said--
Nie Mingjue says nothing.
He turns around and walks quickly away, glad of his task.
He hadn’t been lying. There were many injured. As a result, there is no shortage of fresh bandages, hot water, poultices for the tending of wounds. He remembers that Meng Yao’s core is weak, and takes more than he’d need for himself. He fills a bag, adds extra, just enough to last Meng Yao a few days, until he reaches Lanling.
The healers do not comment. They are busy with their tasks.
Nie Mingjue leaves them to their work, but he feels the eyes of the dead and the injured on his back like a condemnation.
When he walks back to the hall, Meng Yao’s eyes are closed, and if Nie Mingjue ignores the blood, he could be sleeping, if Nie Mingjue ignores the colour of his face, he could cut a decadent figure, curled over the arm of the throne, robes open and pulled away from his shoulders, sharp collar bone and dark nipples and skin like parchment, precious and unmarked.
Except it isn’t.
Nie Mingjue strides to his side quickly, the water in the basin he holds spilling over, hot over his frozen hands. He places it on the floor, kneels by it so he doesn’t hide the light.
“Meng Yao,” he says, putting a hand on his neck, to feel his pulse.
Meng Yao’s eyes snap open, frightened. A rabbit in a snare, a lamb in front of the cleaver.
His heart beats like a rabbit’s too.
Nie Mingjue doesn’t know much of comfort but he knows some things and his body reacts before he can caution it back. He reaches out and smooths Meng Yao’s hair with his palm letting his finger dig into the hair not twisted into braids, rub at the nape of Meng Yao’s neck.
Their eyes meet, their gaze holds.
“Don’t.” Meng Yao says. His voice is cold, and sharp, and tired.
Nie Mingjue takes his hand away, dips a cloth into the hot water.
“This will sting,” he says.
Meng Yao isn’t looking at him.
He cleans the wound thoroughly, wipes dust and lint and flaky, dried blood away. Meng Yao makes no sound, and when Nie Mingjue lets himself look up at him his head is turned to the side, mouth a tight line. He looks back at the wound, looks under Meng Yao’s skin.
There are no revelations for him there.
When he applies the poultice over it, Meng Yao draws a breath. Nie Mingjue’s hand stills, on the tender skin around the wound. His thumb, should he move it, would brush against the dark mark that is Meng Yao’s nipple. He knows, or thinks he knows, how it would feel to flick his nail over it.
He looks back into the wound, the horrible rawness of it, focuses on the smell of the poultice against the cut open flesh.
“Sorry,” Nie Mingjue says.
And Meng Yao laughs.
“Are you really, Nie-zongzhu?” he asks, looking down at him, pathetic and cruel.
“Aren’t you?” Nie Mingjue asks back, and takes his hand away, rinses it on the leftover water, dries it against his robe.
“I’m already banished, does it really even matter?” Meng Yao answers, only that’s not an answer, that’s a provocation, that’s plunging a Wen-dog’s sword into Nie Mingjue’s code of honour and twisting every time the skin heals around the intrusion, the gash festering and rotting in front of him.
His hands shake, a little, but he wraps the bandage over Meng Yao’s shoulder and around his torso gently. This, too, is honour, although not of a kind that Nie Mingjue usually indulges in, not of a kind that his dead would understand. This one he learned from his brother, his brother’s mother. Learned from lighting incense for his mother.
Treat your heart gently, especially when you don’t want to.
Meng Yao’s skin is cold under his fingers, goosebumps running all over it.
He passes the bandage around, over the shoulder, across the torso, ties a knot over where Meng Yao’s heart would be, should it exist. He doesn’t know anymore.
“I’ve delayed you,” he says as he moves away, turns his back to the throne. “You wouldn’t want to be caught out in the dark.”
“Your mind changes with the wind,” Meng Yao says, and Nie Mingjue hears him stand, the rustle of his robes. “Go, Meng Yao, stay, Meng Yao, I owe you my life, Meng Yao, I wish you’d die, Meng Yao. Give me a horse, if you’re so worried.”
“Any one,” Nie Mingjue says, too quickly. He doesn’t dare to look behind him.
Meng Yao’s exhale could be a laugh.
“Nie Mingjue,” he says.
Nie Mingjue imagines him smiling, his face still pale, his lips very red. There are words on his mouth that the dead hold locked under his tongue. If he tried to speak he would choke on them.
There is a light pressure high on his back. It could be a hand, or the press of a face against his robes. It could be nothing but his self delusion.
He doesn’t look.