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“And after we finish cleaning out the mechanisms, we’ll need to prepare our stocks of needles, and - “
Zhou Zishu makes a grimace of pain, brings his hand to his chest, and collapses to the ground.
Almost to the ground. Wen Kexing’s instincts kick in, lightning-fast, and he flies to his soulmate’s side just quickly enough to keep his too-vulnerable head from hitting the ground. Skulls are hard, but brains are soft like jelly. “A-Xu,” he says, panicked, “A-Xu,” voice rising high, shaking him, pushing the opening of his robes looser so he can feel - there. He’s breathing, his heart is still beating, there’s nothing obviously wrong with his qi. He’s still alive, he’s more or less still fine, he’s just knocked out.
(Later, Wen Kexing will realize that he could’ve gleaned all this info without opening Zhou Zishu’s robes. But the animal instinct had been to see that he was whole. Now, though - )
Wen Kexing dithers between their two rooms for the whole time he’s carrying A-Xu back inside, but by the time he’s gotten to there he’s decided on A-Xu’s room. It’s more likely to have anything he might need in it; and, besides, he’d probably rather wake up in his own bed, not Wen Kexing’s.
Once A-Xu is settled with his shoes off and his outer layers tucked decently if loosely back together and a blanket on him, Wen Kexing’s at a loss. He could make cold compresses, but A-Xu doesn’t seem feverish. He could brew some sort of remedy, maybe, if he knew what was wrong. But since he doesn’t all he can do is sit by A-Xu’s side and hold his hand. And keep feeding qi into his wrist, until he wakes up.
Thankfully, it doesn’t last that long. Several shichens pass - maybe three, maybe five - before A-Xu stirs, groaning, and tries to pull his wrist out of Wen Kexing’s grasp. Wen Kexing holds it still.
“A-Xu,” he says. Relieved. Still worried.
“Lao Wen.” Blinking his eyes, grimacing at the light, this could be A-Xu on any grumpy morning.
“A-Xu,” he repeats, urgently. “What happened? Do you know?”
Zhou Zishu screws up his face. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? One minute we’re talking in the courtyard, and the next I wake up in your bed.”
“You’re in your own bed,” Wen Kexing says, with some asperity. “Since I guessed correctly that you’d complain of being in mine. Even if you weren’t, it turns out. But - yes. We were in the courtyard. And then you collapsed, and I brought you here.”
Zhou Zishu gets a shifty look in his eyes. Wen Kexing, ever a predator waiting, pounces.
“A-Xu, why did you collapse?”
“It’s nothing.” Zhou Zishu yanks his hand out of Wen Kexing’s hold, finally, and turns to face the wall. “I’m tired. I needed to sleep. Now let me sleep.”
“A-Xu~,” Wen Kexing says, wheedling, but that has no affect. He didn’t think it would.
Damn.
He gets up to pace around the room. He would leave Zhou Zishu alone, leave him to his nails and to his secrets, because there’s no one who knows better than Wen Kexing what necessary and jealous company secrets, sometimes, can be. But he can’t push his worry away.
He’s staring at an incense burner. Drunk-As-A-Dream, it must be; Zhou Zishu had told him about it. And he’d told him - "Zhou Zishu,” Wen Kexing says, suddenly. He walks back to the bed. “You said that you’d answer any question I asked.”
“Did I? I must’ve lied.” But Zhou Zishu moves his arm off his eyes anyway. He turns to face Wen Kexing again. “Lao Wen. What did you want to ask me?”
“What happened to you?” Words burst out of Wen Kexing as if they’d been building up behind a damn, or maybe more like a waterfall. Like blood spurting from an artery before it’s been tied off. “Tell me. Let me help you with it. A-Xu - please - “ and then he stops again, a spring gone dry. He has no right to answers. Just. Because I need it. Please.
A-Xu sighs. “It was the nails,” he says, simply. “The pain’s been getting worse and worse. I try to make sure I’m in bed by midnight, but we were talking, and… I guess I lost track of time.” He shrugs. “It’s your fault, really. You shouldn’t be so distracting, Lao Wen.”
Wen Kexing refuses to be distracted by that remark. Instead he latches on to an earlier one: “You said it’s been getting worse. How much worse?”
“Lao Wen, Lao Wen.” Zhou Zishu pats the bed next to him. “Come sit here.”
Wen Kexing does. He’s trembling from the stress, and the closeness.
Zhou Zishu hits him in the arm. Pretty damn hard.
“Ow,” he whines, as he rubs the suddenly sore muscle. “What was that for?”
“About that much more,” Zhou Zishu tells him. “As close as I could make it.”
Wen Kexing pouts. “I wanted to help you.”
“You are helping!”
Wen Kexing pouts harder. And keeps rubbing his arm, demonstratively, though it really doesn’t help. “What good is it to be the scion of Healer Valley,” he asks, voice wobbling, horribly - he hadn’t realized that it would - “if I can’t ease my soulmate’s pain?”
“There’s nothing anyone can do,” Zhou Zishu says. “It’s not you.” His voice is soft, and that’s horrible, too. “Shh, shh. Come closer. Lie down.”
He pulls on Wen Kexing’s arm ill-aimedly but insistently until Wen Kexing does what he’d said. Stiffly, carefully, maintaining a fingers-breadth between them at all times. Zhou Zishu pulls the blanket over Wen Kexing, too, as much as he can, and, torn but helpless, Wen Kexing pulls it the rest of the way. Makes sure that it’s still covering Zhou Zishu, too.
“What are we doing?” he whispers.
“You said you wanted to help me. So, okay, I could use a big pillow. Because I’m going back to sleep.”
“I’m too bony to be a good pillow,” Wen Kexing chokes out. He feels like there are bones in his esophagus, little ones, like the ones in people’s toes. Or fingers. Zhou Zishu has closed the gap he’d left between their two bodies, and Wen Kexing doesn’t want to bleed into him. Although Zhou Zishu, he has to admit, is a very good pillow, indeed.
“Then be a bad pillow,” Zhou ZIshu advises him, “but don’t talk back. No pillows ever talk.” Zhou Zishu squeezes him, and the bones in Wen Kexing’s throat turn into - cartilage? He feels an uncomfortable fluttering inside. “Goodnight, Lao Wen.”
“Good night, my A-Xu.” He can’t imagine sleeping like this. But if he lies awake till morning - he’ll take it for the gift it is.
And tomorrow, he still won’t stop trying to think of more ways he can help.