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“Captain. Captain Beidou.”
A hand shakes her, uncertain but with a firm grip. Beidou shrugs them off and sits up drowsily, gnawing the sleep from her eyes with the back of her hand. Blinking out into space in an attempt to get her vision to adjust, her eyes find the white of Kazuha’s hair and the dark silhouette of his clothes, shrouded in shadow. Of all the people on her ship that could have woken her up at ungodly hours, Kazuha was the last person she expected.
“What’s up?” she murmurs. He’s only been here a little over a week already, and for as on-guard as he is and for how dead set he is on not putting them out for his sake, it doesn’t make sense that he’d wake her in the middle of the night unless it were something dire. “Everything okay?”
“Sorry to wake you,” Kazuha whispers, his voice uncharacteristically tight, “but I’ve been a touch stabbed and it might have hit an artery.”
“I… What?”
“An artery,” Kazuha repeats thinly. “There is a lot of blood.”
“What?” She scrambles first to her feet and second to turn on the oil lamp, swinging it around to find Kazuha’s face. He squints against the light, face washed of color and his hand clamped down hard over his shoulder. His entire left side is soaked in blood.
Her thoughts trample over each other, but one of them sticks and she throws the lantern down on the nearest table, catching Kazuha’s arms and dragging him to the floor. “Lie down, lie down,” she demands, shoving him onto his back and yanking her discarded blanket close, winding it into a ball around her fist. “Here, press down on this as hard as you can.” She shoves it into the hole in his shoulder and Kazuha clamps his teeth, but nods, replacing her hands with his and pressing. Then Beidou leaps to her feet and out the door, swinging herself around the corner, then another corner.
She’s only just met him, hardly knows him—but temporarily or not, he’s in her care and that will not slip through her fingers.
“Suling!”
She rams his door in and Suling is startled so hard he topples out of bed, hair mussed and eyes wide.
“Captain! What—”
“Kazuha,” Beidou says sharply, “in my quarters, he’s been stabbed. It was probably an artery. Now.”
Suling is already flying for his medical supplies. She doesn’t wait for him before the mad dash to return to Kazuha’s side. He’s trying to keep pressure on the wound, but his arms tremble and his breaths are too quick. Beidou kneels and locks her hands over his, pressing with all her body weight.
Kazuha jolts. “Captain.”
She grins tightly, but has no idea what it actually looks like. “Just Beidou’s fine, kid.” She can feel the pinch in her brow and the tight, tight lines on her face as her heart throbs in her hands. “You’re alright, don’t worry.”
Suling joins them and Beidou lets him tear away the blanket, then Kazuha’s overshirt and tunic. It seems barely a moment has passed before Suling has disinfected and scorched a blunt dagger.
He meets Beidou’s eyes. She understands, with assurity she wants to drown. She pins Kazuha with her forearms on his chest, weight bearing down, and Suling places a rolled washcloth between Kazuha’s teeth.
“Bite down,” Suling says.
Kazuha nods, and Suling presses the red-hot blade against the wound.
The assailants are found by Drake when Beidou tells him to search the deck for who did this to Kazuha, cuffed and roped together and just regaining consciousness. Drake locks them in the broom closet for safekeeping, and they set a course for land.
There were twelve of them total. Twelve armed assailants with no clear goal or intention. Kazuha dealt with them all on his own and nearly paid the highest price for it, all hardly knowing Beidou and her crew. In her book, a week of companionship is hardly enough time to decide whether or not you’d be willing to die for someone.
“You casually took on an entire sect of rogues,” Beidou recounts a day later but in the same place as before, sitting cross-legged on the floor with Kazuha and armed with a roll of gauze. “Without alerting the rest of the crew.”
She’s turned it over in her mind several times as it is, but saying it out loud births an entirely different feeling. Kazuha winces at the sting when she dabs disinfectant over the wound with a rag. He’s been recovering smoothly enough, especially given the straits, but he can’t hide everything from her. She knows he’s in a lot of pain.
“Sorry,” Beidou says. He’s regained most of his coherency after an ensuing day and night under Suling’s careful but stubborn care, and all that’s left to do about the wound is damage control. Outside the risk of infection, Suling said there was little to worry about. There was a lot of blood, but the wound wasn’t actually through an artery. They were very lucky.
“It’s alright,” Kazuha says, releasing his held breath when she sets down the disinfectant and takes up the gauze in its place. “I would have. But I didn’t have much time to spare, and I didn’t want to risk them following me below decks.”
“You could have yelled.”
“I… also maybe didn’t want to get you and the others involved.”
“Thought so.” Beidou signs, finally unspooling enough gauze to begin wrapping around his shoulder and chest. “You’re a good liar, at least. But I know your type.”
“It’s alright,” Kazuha says softly, cleverly twisting around the rock she overturned. “I didn’t need help.”
“Yeah, so, I don’t care whether you thought you needed help or not,” Beidou says. “What’s the point of having backup if everyone decides they don’t need it?”
“It’s alright,” Kazuha says again, dismissive. “I’m not officially a member of the Crux Fleet as it is. You have no obligation to me, as a captain or companion or otherwise.”
Beidou pauses.
“‘Captain or companion or otherwise…’” she echoes, winding the gauze around his shoulder, the wound steadily disappearing beneath clean white. “If that’s really how you feel, it should be mutual, right? Why put yourself in harm’s way for our sake?”
“You and your crew showed me kindness and took me in when I had nothing left,” Kazuha says. “What else would I have done?”
Beidou lets the words simmer.
She knows Kazuha’s type, perhaps—stubborn, independant, confident, mindful—but she doesn’t know him, yet. It’s been just over a week since she and her crew found him and took him in. He always says he’s grateful, but with an air of distance. An arm’s length, intentional, deliberate and safe. Any advances to move beyond that, and he shrinks further away.
By the time the silence has become comfortable again, Kazuha’s wound is wrapped securely, and she tugs his sleeve back over his shoulder.
“There, all set,” she says, patting his forearm. “That should hold for the rest of the night, Suling’ll be up early to redress it himself. It looks good overall, though. We’ll stave off the risk of infection yet.”
He gives his shoulder an experimental shrug and begins knotting the top ties of his tunic. “Thank you, Beidou.”
“Don’t mention it.” She pats him on his good shoulder and withdraws, sitting back on her calves. “Suling’s brushing up on all his medical knowledge again thanks to you,” she says airily. “Said this whole ordeal ‘rekindled his passion.’” She snorts with a chuckle, and shakes her head. “The guy was never passionate about healing to begin with, though, so I’m not sure what he’s on about.”
Kazuha is studying her closely, searching for a deeper intention. She sees it, takes it and moves on;
“And Drake was impressed with the way you tied up those ruffians. See, that? He was impressed with your knotting skills, of all things. Could have mentioned the dozen rogues you took out, but nah. Knots. Said he wants you to show him the ropes, literally. I’m sure you’d have a blast with that. Drake’s got an adult kid about your age back home, I think he sees a lot of him in you.”
Kazuha is still staring.
“Xu Liushi wants you to teach him some hand-to-hand combat,” Beidou says. “He’s easily the worst at it on the ship, which tells you something. Little Yue’s been trying to brew the perfect cup of chamomile tea for you ever since she heard you got hurt. Hell! I even saw Grub look up from her book when Suling told her what had happened. Do you know how hard it is to impress her? We’ve passed by dragons who’ve tilted her gaze less. Juza and Furong were impressed with your actual combat skills. I think they could learn a lot from you. We all could.”
“What are you saying?” Kazuha asks.
Beidou smiles. “I’m saying you should stick around.”
His eyes widen, but crumble a second later, and he twists his head away. He grasps at his bandaged shoulder gently, with a squeeze, and his airless exhale makes him tremble. “You know I— I’ve already told you. I can’t, Beidou.”
“Yeah, but it’s a self-inflicted ‘can’t,’” Beidou says, “so, you’re the only person struggling under the weight. It doesn’t mean much to me. I just want you to give it some thought, yeah? Real thought. If you still decide to leave after that, it’s all good, but I don’t think you’ve genuinely considered staying.”
Kazuha opens his mouth, only to close it right after. For all that confidence and independence and stubbornness, she thinks he looks lost. “I… don’t know.”
“That’s alright.” She stands, waits a beat, and then pats him on his uninjured shoulder. “You don’t have to know yet, just think about it. And rest, alright?” She won’t say it to him, but she can tell how exhausted he is, and even glimpses of the pain he’s hiding (and he’s worryingly good at hiding it). “Just, rest. Give it some thought. Let me know when you’ve figured it out.”
She straightens completely and pivots, making for the door.
“Wait, Beidou.”
She waits.
Quietly, as though afraid of the answer, Kazuha asks, “Do you really think I should stay?”
And, well. Beidou turns to face him again, to find his lost but just barely hopeful eyes, and smiles easily. “You know what I think, kid,” she says, pulling open the door. “But you have time. It’s a big ocean. Give it as much thought as you need to be at peace with whatever you decide.”
She gives him space, letting the door swing shut at her back. Beyond selfishness, she does want him to think through his decisions objectively and make whichever is the best for him. Even with how little she knows of his situation, she knows enough. It’s dire, and tricky. And she understands his reluctance to trust, or to choose. Or to stay. If it is best for him to keep his ties to himself, to remain alone on the run, then she’ll wish him luck.
But that doesn’t stop her from hoping that he’ll choose to stay.