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Xiao Xingchen was not a doctor, but he had more than a passing familiarity with medicine - everyone on the mountain had learned at least a little, and he’d taken to it. In the years since descending, he’d had occasion to use it fairly frequently: on himself, yes, but also to aid others in need, those sick or suffering or wounded. He had dealt with a range of people with a range of responses, from frightened to stubborn to belligerent.
He could not remember having treated anyone quite so reluctant to stay still as his present patient.
His injuries were not minor. If Xiao Xingchen hadn’t found him when he had, he probably would have died within the day. He wasn’t at risk of that anymore, but the damage to his leg had cut through the muscle almost to the bone, the stab wound through his shoulder had only narrowly missed piercing anything life-threatening or crippling, and at least four of his ribs were broken from what had been, as far as Xiao Xingchen could tell, a truly brutal beating.
“Oh, yeah,” the stranger said casually, when he asked. “Pretty spectacular. You’d think I’d dishonored their mothers, or something, how hard they were going at it.”
He sounded almost amused. As though it was something funny.
(Xiao Xingchen didn’t find it entertaining at all. He knew that some people dealt with their pain by making light of it, but it still seemed wrong to be quite so cavalier about an attempt on your life.)
But despite all that, the stranger refused to lie down and rest.
Barely a day after he brought the man to the yizhuang half-dead, Xiao Xingchen went out for supplies. “Daozhang,” the stranger’s slightly hoarse voice greeted him when he returned. “Welcome back! What’d you get?”
Xiao Xingchen stopped, frowning, turning his head in the direction of his voice. When he’d left, the stranger had been inside. Now he wasn’t.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Just walking around some,” the stranger said, and Xiao Xingchen stiffened, immediately lowering the bundle he was holding to the ground and stepping quickly toward where he heard his voice.
“Walking around?” he said, incredulous and a little horrified. “You’re - stop, sit down, you shouldn’t be standing let alone putting that kind of strain on your injuries–”
“Calm down, daozhang!” the stranger said, laughing. “What am I going to do, lie around all day doing nothing?”
“Yes,” Xiao Xingchen said. The stranger made a derisive noise.
“Boring,” he said. Xiao Xingchen used the sound to guide him forward, hand outstretched until he found the stranger’s arm.
“Sit down,” he said. “You could break open your wounds, set back your healing days - weeks.”
The stranger’s fingers wrapped around his wrist and Xiao Xingchen could hear him smiling. “Pff,” he said. “I’m no weakling. It’s good for me to keep moving.”
“It’s–” Xiao Xingchen shook his head. “No it isn’t!”
“I know what I’m talking about,” the stranger said. “I have a lot of experience.” He laughed, again like that was a joke; still one it was hard to find funny. Xiao Xingchen pressed his lips together.
“So do I,” he said, “with treating injuries, and I know,” but the stranger had just jerked violently away from him with a sharp hiss of breath as he tried to maneuver to take the stranger’s weight. He stopped at once only to freeze when he heard a stumble, a bitten off curse and then a thud.
“Ah…” He didn’t know what to call him. “Friend?” he said uncertainly, feeling very at sea, and a little presumptuous.
“Yeah,” said the stranger’s voice. It sounded strained, and also lower to the ground than it had. “Yeah, right here.”
“Are you all right?” He knew the answer was no. He also suspected that it would be better to ask the question anyway.
“Uh huh,” the stranger said, slightly out-of-breath. “Yeah, I’m good. Surprised me there, Daozhang, were you trying to feel me up? Sorry, but I’m not that kind of girl–”
“You fell,” Xiao Xingchen interrupted. The silence felt weighted.
“I’m good,” the stranger repeated, his voice a little harder. Xiao Xingchen heard a huff, a grunt of effort, and half stepped forward, reaching out, but his hands found only empty air.
It wasn’t as though Xiao Xingchen was unfamiliar with difficult patients. And he was certainly familiar with patients who were uncomfortable with their own vulnerability and reacted unpleasantly, with fear or anger. He knew how to deal with those things; was, if he could claim as much, even good at them.
The stranger was a slightly different sort of puzzle.
He wasn’t hostile or unpleasant - far from it. If anything, he didn’t seem to take any of it seriously. He didn’t take any of it seriously. Xiao Xingchen told him to rest and almost as soon as he left the room he’d be on his feet; Xiao Xingchen told him to not do that and he laughed and a good half the time ignored him otherwise.
And it wasn’t as though he was healing more quickly than Xiao Xingchen expected - except maybe by a bare margin, aided by his youth and relative health. He was still injured, and from what Xiao Xingchen could hear, his movement was an awkward, limping thing. If Xiao Xingchen didn’t hear him fall again he doubted that was because it hadn’t happened. And the stranger was very good at evading all of Xiao Xingchen’s usual tactics, when he didn’t just treat them with a sort of amused befuddlement, like Xiao Xingchen was a bit eccentric.
It wasn’t wise. It wasn’t sustainable. The stranger seemed to believe he was immune to weaknesses of his body - Xiao Xingchen had seen that play out plenty of times, and it always ended the same way.
He didn’t take any satisfaction from being right
He came back to the yizhuang from searching the market to replenish his herb stock and a-Qing said, “I think the asshole fainted or something.” Xiao Xingchen stiffened, alarm spiking through him.
“Fainted?” he said. And then, “don’t call him that,” and then, “where?”
“Not sure,” she said. “I just heard something. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want to step on him or something.”
“How long ago,” Xiao Xingchen said. He could hear the sharp, displeased note in his own voice and might have winced; a-Qing’s pause felt long.
“Not that long,” she said. “A stick of incense couldn’t’ve burned down since.”
That was good, then. But he needed to find the stranger, and if he was unconscious...he tried to sniff for blood but couldn’t find it. His only option was to start walking, carefully, his heart beating in his throat. He should have been firmer. He should have done more, a better job, what if something had gone horribly wrong, what if…
He heard a groan and immediately turned toward it, quickening his pace. “My friend?” he called, to no immediate answer.
“Aw, fuck,” he heard, after a few moments, blurry and pained. He adjusted course slightly and closed what he thought was the last of the distance before crouching down and reaching out. It was a little further than he thought, and his fingertips barely brushed fabric before it vanished. “Don’t touch me,” said the stranger, a sudden and unfamiliar edge in his voice, not quite a snarl.
He drew his hands back, holding them with his palms up. “It’s only me,” he said. “Xiao Xingchen. Do you remember me?”
“Yeah, I remember you,” said the stranger, but it sounded angry, hostile, and Xiao Xingchen drew back further, something tickling at the edge of his mind like a memory just out of reach.
“Then you know I won’t hurt you,” he said, keeping his voice deliberately calm. The stranger was quiet though Xiao Xingchen could hear his harsh breathing. “Can you tell me what happened?”
When he spoke again the stranger’s voice was much calmer, the hostility vanished. “Shit,” the stranger said, and laughed, a strange wild edge to the sound. “I was walking to get some water from the well. And then I wasn’t walking anymore.”
That didn’t explain the unconsciousness, however brief. “Was it your leg?” he said gingerly.
“Sure,” the stranger said. “Something like that. Go ahead and tell me that you told me so and then help me up, would you?”
Xiao Xingchen drew a little closer, frowning, troubled, and reached out again, finding his shoulder first. The stranger tensed but didn’t pull away, and Xiao Xingchen moved his hand up to his face, feeling his forehead with the back of his fingers. The stranger pushed him away.
“Oh, come on,” he said. “I’m not sick,” but Xiao Xingchen didn’t like the feel of him.
“Why did you lose consciousness?” he asked. The stranger let out another laugh, though this one sounded less wild.
“Lose consciousness? Me? I just felt like taking a nap down here.”
Xiao Xingchen frowned. “My friend,” he said, “I can’t help you if you won’t let me.”
“Some people might say you can’t take a hint,” the stranger said, and there was a slightly unpleasant note back in his voice. Xiao Xingchen considered his best response and opted to ignore it.
“Do you feel dizzy? Woozy? Chilled?”
“If you’re gonna be like that,” the stranger said, and Xiao Xingchen felt him move as if to stand and reached out to stop him. Immediately the stranger went stiff, taut as a drawn bowstring. He very nearly shook with it.
“Please,” he said, trying to keep his voice gentle. “Let me help you.”
“You already did,” the stranger said. “Now you’re just getting pushy. I might start thinking you want to keep me around for something else.”
Xiao Xingchen’s face warmed and he cleared his throat. “That’s not,” he started to say, and then gave up. “You’re still healing. And I’m concerned that one of your wounds may have become infected due to overstraining it.”
There was what felt like a long silence. Xiao Xingchen hesitated, pressed his lips together, and spoke again.
“We could make a bargain,” he said. “If you let me help, and do as I say for the next three days...what would you want?”
Another long silence. Then the stranger said, voice a little odd, “you’re saying you’ll give me something I want in exchange for you helping me?”
“Yes?” Xiao Xingchen said, and then corrected it to a statement: “yes.” He supposed when you put it that way it did seem a little odd but he wasn’t going to change his mind now, and if it worked it worked.
“Anything I want,” the stranger pressed.
“Well, not anything,” Xiao Xingchen said. “I won’t do anything that would cause anyone harm, and I have somewhat limited resources. But other than that…”
The stranger was quiet for several moments other than the harsh sound of his breathing.
“Daozhang,” a-Qing called, “is he dead or what?”
“Sorry, brat,” the stranger said, and his voice had changed again, light and teasing. “You’re out of luck on that one.” After a brief pause he huffed something not quite a laugh and said, “okay, sure. Two days, though. And I’ll hold that favor for later.”
Xiao Xingchen beamed. “All right,” he said. “Two days.” And then he’d have to figure out something else. But it was something. “Starting now,” he added. “I’ll help you back inside so you don’t have to put any more weight on your leg, and then I need to examine you more carefully for infection.”
“Daozhang, you can examine me as carefully as you want,” the stranger said brightly - and suggestively. Xiao Xingchen had to laugh even though his face must be turning pink.
“Do we have an agreement?” Xiao Xingchen asked.
“Yeah,” the stranger said after a brief pause, that slightly strange note back in his voice. “We do.”
They hobbled back inside and Xiao Xingchen lowered him onto the bed. His body felt too warm where it touched Xiao Xingchen’s, but he wasn’t entirely certain that was fever and not just the fact that the stranger seemed to run hot as a rule.
He waited until the stranger said, “okay,” and then knelt down, his right hand finding his knee and then moving upwards. The first time he’d done this, the stranger had been stiff as a board even as he teased Xiao Xingchen about how it was good for his modesty that Xiao Xingchen was blind. Here and now Xiao Xingchen could feel the tension in the muscles of his thigh even before he reached the bandage, which felt damp to the touch. Xiao Xingchen frowned.
“Did it start bleeding again?”
“No,” the stranger said, and when Xiao Xingchen just waited huffed and said, “maybe a little.”
He pressed very lightly and the stranger twitched, though he didn’t make any sound. Sensitive, then. That wasn’t surprising, particularly if it’d broken open. At least it didn’t feel like it was too bad.
“I understand,” he said, infusing some qi into the damaged muscle to encourage healing. The stranger made a sort of ‘huh’ noise.
“Sure,” he said. “Might need a little more than that if you want me to know what you’re talking about, though.”
Xiao Xingchen turned his face downward and said, “your...restlessness. I know you’re bored, and must be eager to move on.”
“You’ve got part of that right, anyway,” the stranger said after a few moments, casually. Xiao Xingchen tried not to tense, tried to ignore the foolish, hopeful little jump of his heart. Which part, he wanted to say, but it would just sound - silly.
“And...and I imagine you don’t like feeling...idle.”
“No,” the stranger said after a longer pause. “That’s definitely true. Rather be dead than bored.”
Xiao Xingchen frowned, but decided not to comment on that. “Be careful,” he said, lightening his voice. “Or I’ll take you seriously and put you to work cooking and cleaning as soon as you’re able.”
“Ha!” said the stranger. “Get me bored enough and I might even do it.”
Xiao Xingchen paused in his ministrations and turned his face up, hoping that he was more or less where the stranger could see his face, and smiled a little. “That just sounds like an incentive to make sure that you’re very bored indeed,” he said, teasing, and the stranger laughed, really laughed, bright and startlingly loud. Xiao Xingchen’s smile grew.
“You’re funny, Daozhang,” the stranger said, a mixture of delighted and surprised, and Xiao Xingchen ducked his head though he was still smiling.
“Do you want something for the pain?” he asked, stopping the flow of qi between them, though he didn’t draw back as quickly as he might have.
“I’m good,” the stranger said, a little too quickly, and Xiao Xingchen frowned. “No, really,” he said. “I’m used to it and it’s nothing I can’t handle.”
Xiao Xingchen’s frown deepened. “Used to...pain?” he said, and there was a hitch of a silence before the stranger laughed.
“Yeah,” he said. “Get kicked around a few times and you learn to not take it too seriously. It’s just a thing that happens.”
Xiao Xingchen’s eyebrows drew together. “That’s not how it should be,” he objected. “Even if - that doesn’t make it better.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me or anything,” the stranger said, with a strange mix of amusement and a touch of...annoyance?
“I don’t,” Xiao Xingchen said honestly. “I just…” It seemed wrong. Nagged at him in the same way it had when he had witnessed unfairness, injustice, cruelty; a sense of something amiss that needed to be rectified.
He knew now that he couldn’t assume he was the one who should do it; that it was arrogance to assume that he was the person to right the world’s wrongs. But that didn’t mean he didn’t still feel the urge.
The stranger laughed. “If you keep frowning like that your face is gonna stick that way and you won’t be half as pretty anymore,” he said. Xiao Xingchen started to frown at him, stopped himself, and then registered fully what the stranger had said and felt his face warm. That just made the stranger laugh more, and Xiao Xingchen made a face at him, torn between embarrassment and a different sort of warmth.
“I don’t think it works that way,” he protested. The stranger hmmed.
“Can’t be sure, though,” he said. “Do you really want to risk it?”
“I’m not terribly concerned,” Xiao Xingchen said. “I’m not so vain as that.”
“Think of the rest of us, though,” the stranger said. “Who have to look at you. I mean, the brat gets a pass but what about me?”
Xiao Xingchen shook his head, suppressing a smile. “I believe in your ability to endure,” he said primly, and was genuinely delighted at the hoot of laughter that won from the stranger.
It was good, he thought, to be able to bring someone joy, or at least a few moments of mirth.
“What do you get out of this?” the stranger asked after a few moments of silence. His voice was more serious again; Xiao Xingchen almost would’ve said he sounded cautious.
“Out of what?” Xiao Xingchen asked, genuinely curious.
“Nothing,” the stranger said after a brief pause, voice shifting again, something strange in it that Xiao Xingchen couldn’t quite identify. “Never mind.”
No, what is it, Xiao Xingchen thought, but he closed his mouth on it. It wasn’t his to pry.
Then the stranger laughed, though that sounded a little odd too. “Thanks, Daozhang,” he said. “You’re too good to this humble traveler.”
“Not so,” Xiao Xingchen said, “but you are welcome, my friend.”