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Okay, so sometimes he made stupid choices. Sometimes he made choices that shouldn’t have been stupid but turned out to be stupid anyway.
He should be better than this. He should be stronger than this. He was stronger than this, he was and he would be and the second he was properly back on his feet, the things he was going to do would hurt. Badly.
Thinking that - knowing it - didn’t solve his immediate problem.
He’d just meant to go for a short walk in the immediate area of the yizhuang. Get a sense of the territory, the lay of the land - and get some space from Xiao Xingchen-daozhang and that insufferable little brat always hanging on his arm and scowling in his direction before he gave into temptation and tried to bash someone’s brains in.
The guy had run into him. It wasn’t Xue Yang’s fault he got so pissy about it. All Xue Yang had done was tell him to back off or he’d break his face so his own mother wouldn’t know it. It wasn’t his fault that’d been taken as some kind of challenge. Wasn’t his fault for sure that the idiot had decided to go and tell him that he wasn’t scared of some useless cripple, like he thought Xue Yang wouldn’t follow through.
Stupid.
He smashed his nose with his fist first, then grabbed his head and slammed his knee into his face, and then spun him around and threw him face first into the nearest wall. He felt the satisfying crunch of bone deep in his stomach.
It lasted about as long as the qi he’d been using to support his bad leg. Xiao Xingchen had been telling him he needed to be meditating to rebuild his reserves. That he needed to rest and allow his body the chance to restore itself, or whatever he’d said.
Fuck him very much for being right.
Idiot wasn’t alone. Idiot had brought friends, and if at first they looked scared, Xue Yang saw the moment they noticed his unsteadiness. Like a hungry ghost smelling blood. And just like that he went from predator to prey.
“Try it,” Xue Yang said, “and you’ll regret it. I never forget a face. And I won’t go easy on you like I did on him.”
“Looks like whoever crippled you didn’t do a good enough job,” one of them said. “Guess we’ll just have to do better.” Closing in, and he was too slow.
No, he thought savagely. No, absolutely not, that’s not what I am anymore and you can’t make me go back–
Same as ever, it wasn’t up to him.
Xue Yang didn’t know if they’d been trying to beat him to death or just pissed enough not to care if he died. He hadn’t, but if he didn’t have a golden core sustaining him, however weak he was right now, there were good odds he might’ve.
He was pretty sure he’d slipped out of consciousness somewhere in the middle of the whole thing. His ribs hurt, his insides hurt, his face was a mess of throbbing pain. The wound in his thigh had probably broken open, based on the wet feeling there.
About the only thing that didn’t hurt, actually, was his hands. So that was something.
It was starting to get dark by the time Xue Yang dragged his sorry carcass back to the yizhuang. It wasn’t the most enjoyable journey he’d taken, and it felt far longer than it had any right to, and he spent the whole time seesawing back and forth between pissed off and miserable and just fucking hurting.
If they thought he was going to forget about this–
Xiao Xingchen was out in the courtyard looking troubled about something or other. A wave of irritation swept over Xue Yang just looking at him, but he swallowed it down and just said, “hey, Daozhang, I’m back.”
Xiao Xingchen straightened up right off, his expression lightening with what looked a lot like relief. “There you are,” he said. “Where did you go? Your leg–”
“Daozhang, Daozhang, I’m fine,” Xue Yang interrupted. “Just got restless.” The blind brat was sitting on one of the coffins, legs folded up, and it looked like she was squinting at him but when he turned to check she was just staring at nothing again. “Don’t tell me you were worried.”
Xiao Xingchen turned a little pink, but he smiled a little, too. “Is that unreasonable?” he said. “Particularly given that you shouldn’t be walking around on that injury at all yet. Doesn’t it hurt?”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” Xue Yang said lightly. He could feel it threatening to give out again. Xiao Xingchen drew closer to him.
“I’m sure,” he said. “But maybe I should check, to make sure you aren’t…” He trailed off when Xue Yang jerked back away, letting out a faint hiss as the sudden movement jarred his bruised insides.
Xiao Xingchen fell still, frowning. “Stranger?” he said. Xue Yang tried to laugh.
“You sure you don’t just want to get your hands all over me, Daozhang?” he teased.
“Gross,” the brat said, but though Xiao Xingchen got a little pinker he didn’t really waver.
“Is something wrong?” he asked. A shiver ran down Xue Yang’s spine that he tried to twitch off.
“What? No,” he said, almost automatically. “Why?” It was just some bruises. Nothing he was going to whine about to Xiao Xingchen, that was for sure.
“You sound…” Xiao Xingchen frowned, then shook his head.
“Sound what?” Xue Yang said. “Were you going to say I sound bad? Cause Daozhang, that’s just hurtful.”
Xiao Xingchen laughed a little and an ember of warmth flared up briefly in Xue Yang’s chest and then went out. “No, no,” he said. “That’s not what I meant at all. But will you let me inspect your leg?”
“If you really want to, I guess,” Xue Yang said, after a moment wrestling with himself. Letting Xiao Xingchen at that meant letting him get close to everything else. Not letting him might look weird, suspicious. He had to be careful right now. All it’d take would be one wrong move and some bruises and a black eye would be the least of his problems.
He limped over and sat down, careful not to make it careful and also careful to swallow the grunt when that jarred his...everything. Xiao Xingchen sat down next to him.
“Lean back a little,” he said, one hand going to Xue Yang’s chest to push him back, and it caught him enough by surprise that he didn’t control the flinch or the brief pained noise he made.
Xiao Xingchen went still. So did Xue Yang.
“Did that hurt you?” Xiao Xingchen asked, slow and quiet.
Xue Yang made himself scoff. “No,” he said. “Course not. You just surprised me.”
“Hm,” Xiao Xingchen said. And nothing else, just sitting there with his face turned in his direction, waiting, like he thought Xue Yang was going to cave to that.
“What,” he said finally, when the silence started to make his skin prickle.
“Did something happen while you were out?” Xiao Xingchen asked. And before Xue Yang could reply he said, “you were gone for a while. And you’re moving differently than you were. More stiffly.”
A weird little shiver ran down Xue Yang’s spine that made him want to squirm. “What, do you think I went and got myself beat up while you weren’t looking?” he said. “I mean, not that you’re ever looking,” which should’ve gotten a laugh or at least a smile but didn’t get anything but that steady...not gaze, obviously, but it felt like it.
Then Xiao Xingchen raised a hand to his face and brushed his fingers against Xue Yang’s (swollen, aching) jaw. He shuddered and jerked away, belatedly, but Xiao Xingchen’s somber expression darkened to a true frown.
“What happened,” he said, less of a question this time.
“Aw, you are worried about me, Daozhang,” Xue Yang said, trying to tease, but he could feel himself tensing even though tensing hurt.
“I am now,” Xiao Xingchen said, which cut right through him and he didn’t have a quick enough response to keep Xiao Xingchen from taking his face in his hands, touching his swollen eye, the sticky blood under his nose.
He should pull away. Swat Xiao Xingchen’s hands away and tell him it was none of his fucking business, but there was a weird satisfaction to the bloom of pain under Xiao Xingchen’s light touch, his methodical exploration of the bruises they’d left on his face, his expression still and hard to read. Xue Yang half-closed his eyes and leaned into his hands as they moved over his chest and stomach, the warmth of hurting sweet and familiar, easy.
Getting handsy, Daozhang, he was going to say, when Xiao Xingchen found a particularly nasty bruise over Xue Yang’s hip, bone-deep feeling, and he let out a hiss and twitched away, jarred out of his trance. Xiao Xingchen pulled his hands back quickly.
Xue Yang started to say it anyway, but before he could get the words out Xiao Xingchen took a short breath and then said, “who did this to you?”
Simple enough question. But the way he asked it was…
Angry. Xiao Xingchen was angry, and he knew it because he knew what Xiao Xingchen angry sounded like, only last time he’d heard it it’d been because he was pissed about Xue Yang getting off easy.
“Uh,” he said, like an idiot.
“How badly are you hurt,” Xiao Xingchen asked, that hard note still in his calm voice. Then he checked himself and said, “where else are you hurt? Your face, clearly. What happened?”
“That’s three questions at the same time, Daozhang,” Xue Yang said. “How’m I supposed to decide which one to answer first?”
Xiao Xingchen’s expression didn’t so much as twitch and he didn’t say anything, just...waiting. Xue Yang fidgeted.
“Went out, ran into some trouble,” he said casually after a few moments. “Thought I could handle it, turns out...it’s fine. I got worse before I was seven.”
Xiao Xingchen’s face did spasm a little at that like he was going to get upset about it, but only for a moment before it evened out again. “Someone beat you,” he said.
“Someones,” Xue Yang said. “Give me a little credit.” That didn’t get anything either.
This should be funny. Should be hilarious, Xiao Xingchen getting all angry on his behalf about a fight he’d started in the first place.
Xue Yang didn’t feel like laughing.
“Friend,” Xiao Xingchen said, and then stopped. Gathered himself, and said more slowly, “let me see to your injuries, and then we can discuss it.”
I’m good, was on the tip of Xue Yang’s tongue. Just some bruises, Daozhang, I’m not going to cry about it.
Xiao Xingchen probed his ribs and he flinched violently away without meaning to, an awful and involuntary noise exploding out of his throat. They both went still again. Xue Yang could feel his face burning, a furious angry heat growing in his stomach that wanted to rip into something, wanted someone to bleed and there was a perfect target right in front of him–
The look on Xiao Xingchen’s face knocked him sideways enough to distract him from the building storm inside him.
“This is unacceptable,” he said hotly. “You’re - injured, wounded, and they attacked you - why?”
It felt like he was choking on the laugh he should’ve wanted to let out.
“Guess I pissed them off,” he said, when he could get the words out. After a moment, probing like he was poking at a bruise, “I did punch one of them first.”
Xiao Xingchen’s frown deepened. “Why did you do that?”
Xue Yang considered Xiao Xingchen, his skin prickling strangely. “He called me a useless cripple,” he said finally. Saying it out loud felt - bad. But he wanted to know what Xiao Xingchen would do. What he’d say, how he’d scold Xue Yang for starting a fight and making trouble or...whatever.
Xiao Xingchen’s nostrils flared and his lips pressed into a thin line. He took a deep breath that was clearly meant to be calming, though it didn’t look like it worked that well. Xue Yang stared at him, fascinated.
“Who were they,” he said. Xue Yang blinked, and then laughed.
“What, you planning to go avenge me?” he said. “Wouldn’t be a very fair fight.”
“It wasn’t with you, either,” Xiao Xingchen said, which felt like a sucker punch right into his already battered organs. He was at a loss just long enough that he didn’t have a response before Xiao Xingchen added, “not avenge. But I can’t - it’s wrong.”
This didn’t feel real. Xiao Xingchen, getting all indignant about an injustice, on his behalf, like Xue Yang was one of his helpless idiots who couldn’t protect themselves–
He felt a little sick, a little unsteady. He’d probably taken a blow to the head, rattled his brain a little, something like that.
“I need to say something,” Xiao Xingchen said. “There should be consequences. Reparations made, or an apology at least–”
Shit, no. “I don’t want an apology. I’d rather just never have to see their faces again.” At least not until he was ready to make sure his face was the last thing they saw.
“But–” Xiao Xingchen made a frustrated, angry noise that seemed so incongruous that Xue Yang almost checked to see if it’d been someone else. But it was just him. Angry. Angry because some stranger he barely even knew had gotten hurt by some people he didn’t know at all. “Never mind. It can wait. You’re hurt.”
“Just some bruises,” Xue Yang said, but Xiao Xingchen was already checking his pulse, examining him for damage like he was some fragile piece of fine porcelain. His frown deepening all the while. Xue Yang held still, though his entire body resisted it, wanting to pull away, to get distance between him and anyone else. He reached Xue Yang’s leg and paused.
“It’s been reopened,” he said, sounding dismayed. Xue Yang twitched one shoulder.
“Yeah,” he said tensely.
“Were you going to tell me about any of this, if I hadn’t noticed?” Xiao Xingchen asked. It didn’t sound like an accusation, more like he was hurt, or something, like Xue Yang owed him any explanations, owed him telling him anything. For some reason he didn’t want to say so, though. “What would you have done?”
“I’ve taken beatings before,” Xue Yang said. “I know how to handle it.”
Xiao Xingchen looked angry again. And sort of sad. And then just stubborn. “Well,” he said, voice a little tart, “I’m glad I did notice.”
“Daozhang is so attentive,” Xue Yang said. He meant it to be teasing - mocking that Xiao Xingchen wouldn’t notice - but he just sounded stupid. Confused. His bruised guts seized like they were trying to cramp.
“You’re my patient,” Xiao Xingchen said, like it was that simple. “Until you’re healed, it’s my business to see to your welfare.”
Xue Yang’s throat squeezed. His heart was beating a little too fast and he had the urge to look over his shoulder for someone in pursuit. It felt like - it felt like fear which was stupid, there was nothing to be afraid of. It was probably his ribs, constraining his breathing, making it feel like he couldn’t get enough air.
“You should have come to me,” Xiao Xingchen said. “Some of your ribs are broken and there is internal bleeding. The wound in your leg is bleeding again, and there’s a bone bruise forming on your hip. It doesn’t seem like any of the injuries to your head and face will cause lasting damage–”
“Good,” Xue Yang said faintly. “Be a fucking tragedy if my pretty face was ruined.”
“This is serious,” Xiao Xingchen said.
“I’d live,” Xue Yang said. “I’ve had worse. I mean, you know that. I was worse when you found me.” Xiao Xingchen shook his head.
“Let me transfer some qi to you,” he said. “To help stabilize your energies and hasten healing. I’ll make you some medicine, and you should rest.”
It was ridiculous. All this fussing over a beating and some bruises. If Xiao Xingchen knew who he was treating with so much care he’d be horrified.
His stomach started hurting worse.
Xue Yang shivered when Xiao Xingchen first began transferring his qi and almost yanked himself away, but forced himself to stay still. And after the initial shock it felt good. Warm water sliding through his meridians, warming him up from inside.
He’d never do that for Xue Yang.
“You aren’t useless,” Xiao Xingchen said abruptly, like he might be worried about that.
“I know,” Xue Yang said. “You don’t think I’d really believe that.” Xiao Xingchen nodded, but he still seemed troubled. Xue Yang’s skin was crawling and he stared at where Xiao Xingchen had his fingers pressed to the inside of his wrist.
The world seemed off-kilter, off-balance. He must’ve taken some kick to the head. Fuckers would pay.
“You didn’t tell me who it was,” Xiao Xingchen said. Xue Yang’s laugh hurt his throat.
“I’m not a kid who’s going to go running to tell on a bully,” he said. “Like I said. It doesn’t matter.”
“Let me do something,” Xiao Xingchen said. “It’s not right for them to have done this to you. And they shouldn’t think that they can hurt people with impunity.”
Xue Yang stared at him. He really seemed to mean it, too. Like he’d really go and tell them off, like they were just stupid kids and it’d make a difference him telling them it was wrong and bad to hurt people. They’d laugh in his face. Xue Yang would laugh in his face.
“Don’t bother,” Xue Yang heard himself say. “I don’t know, anyway. Didn’t recognize them. For all I know they don’t even live here and were just passing through.” He shifted. “You’re getting pretty worked up about this. For all you know, maybe I deserved it.”
“Nobody deserves to be treated like that,” Xiao Xingchen said firmly. “Even if you did lash out first, that doesn’t excuse this kind of retaliation against someone who can’t fight back.”
Xue Yang choked on his laugh. Nobody, huh, he thought, wonder how quick we’d find the limits of that nobody if–
He brushed that thought off. It didn’t matter. If Xiao Xingchen wanted to get all - whatever about this, fine.
He knew it wasn’t real, but it felt like he could still feel the warmth of Xiao Xingchen’s qi coursing through his body. Something different from his own. Cleaner, brighter.
Xue Yang’s guts cramped again.
It wasn’t really his. A lie, like all kindness really was at the bottom, that broke as soon as you looked at it closely. Like the person he was pretending to be, nice and friendly and safe and harmless. Xiao Xingchen thought he was helping some poor, persecuted man in need and didn’t know he was hand-feeding a wolf, and it was going to be so funny when Xue Yang told him the truth.
It was interesting, though. Thinking so this is what it’d feel like to matter to someone.
He didn’t need it. Never had. But it was an odd thing, unfamiliar, interesting. Maybe worth getting to know a little before it was gone. For the novelty.
“My friend?” Xiao Xingchen said. He shook himself.
“Thank you, Daozhang,” he said. His voice sounded a little weird, not quite right. “You’re sweet.”
You’re letting him go, Xiao Xingchen said, angry because of him. Who did this to you, Xiao Xingchen said, angry for his sake.
Strange, the jokes fate played. At least one of them got to appreciate it.
Xue Yang had made a promise. And he kept his promises.
It took some work, but Xue Yang had always been resourceful.
“Sorry I can’t stick around to explain it to you,” he said. “I guess I’ll just have to hope you figure it out. And you’re doing me a big favor, really, helping me test out an idea.”
Xiao Xingchen had said he wanted to see Xue Yang’s attackers punished.
Now, Xue Yang thought, dusting the corpse powder off his hands, he’d get to do it himself. Sure, he wouldn’t know. But Xue Yang would.
That was good enough.