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Gu Mang doesn’t know what he did wrong, this time.
He does wrong all the time, and then Li Wei will squawk like a clucky chicken and sigh, then tell him to do something else. Or maybe the cook lady will, brandishing her big cleaver and yelling that he isn’t allowed in the cellars and what is THAT IN YOUR MOUTH—
It’s worse when it makes Zhushang mad, though. If Zhushang yells it’s alright, like he just needs to howl a little to let out the angry and then he’ll be better, but it’s worse when Zhushang is cold-angry, silent-angry, the type of angry that means he gets stared at like the man’s already envisioning how to crack open his bones and eat the marrow inside. Cold always prickles on the back of his neck when Zhushang looks at him like that, but Gu Mang doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know why the name Zhushang feels like that in his head either, like a loose fang that hadn’t quite come out all the way. Halfway there, but also not right at all. It’d sounded right when he’d said Gongzhu that time at the nice restaurant in the city, but that had made Zhushang stare at him all cold, too, so maybe that wasn’t really right either. Usually he thought the words “Mo Xi” in his head, which were right but if he said it out loud it would make Li Wei anxious, so Gu Mang only called him that in his head. Mo Xi , like that, very quietly. He was a good wolf. He was learning the rules.
He hadn’t even done anything to break them, or at least nothing he remembered (which wasn’t all that much, most days, but he usually knew which messes were his fault and which messes were Fandou’s) — he’d just been scrubbing the dishes the way the cook lady had told him, out in the courtyard where the snow hadn’t been swept yet. The basin was warm at the beginning but it got cold, and then colder, but it was okay. Gu Mang was used to the cold.
But Gu Mang wasn’t used to suddenly getting hauled upright from his little stool, though he guessed the only person tall enough to do it in all of Xihe Manor was Zhushang himself, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise when he turned around to meet those icy eyes glaring at him.
“What do you think you’re doing,” he snarled. Gu Mang wasn’t very impressed by his snarls, he knew he could do better, but he was too much of a good packmate to show off. Anyways, Zhushang was the best hunter in their pack, so it didn’t matter as much if he couldn’t snarl.
But why was he so angry? Gu Mang was just washing the dishes.
He’d said as much, to explain, showing him his hands so swollen they looked like radishes. “Look,” he said, reaching out and shoving the hems of his sleeves up again, harder this time so they’d stay there instead of flumping into the water. But that wasn’t right either, because it made Zhushang grab him by the wrist, exposing more of his chilly forearm before letting go as if Gu Mang burned him.
Gu Mang poked his arm. It didn’t feel burning at all, it was cold even though his fingers were too numb to tell much beyond that. But he wouldn’t say so to Mo Xi.
“You,” Mo Xi said, a strange tone to his voice. “Why are you always…”
Gu Mang didn’t know what he was talking about, but he recognized that voice. It was best not to look him in the eye when he sounded like that, because it would always make him feel strange and chilled and edgy, like his skin wasn’t quite right for the soul that lay within it.
And then he’d shivered really hard, both at the thought and because it was so cold outside. Maybe that was what made Mo Xi so mad, but it wasn’t Gu Mang’s fault there was snow on the ground and snow in the wind. Snow in his hair.
Even if it wasn’t his fault, Zhushang still glared at him and then dragged him inside, grabbing him by the wrist again and refusing to let go no matter how much Gu Mang explained that he still needed to finish doing the dishes or else.
“Or else what,” Zhushang asked him, flatly and huffily and still yanking him along. Gu Mang remembered then—the cook lady said he had to wash them or Zhushang would be angry, but Zhushang was already angry, so maybe it didn’t matter anymore. He nodded to himself and told him, “Nothing.” Then he sneezed, his whole body tensing with the force of it. Mo Xi just tightened his grip on his arm. Gu Mang wondered if he was drunk, but he didn’t smell like wine, like the men who drank a lot and then turned mean and vicious.
By then they’d made it to the master’s quarters but Mo Xi still wouldn’t let go, yanking him all the way into the bathing room behind the pretty screen. The wooden tub was full already, steam rising up in spirals the way fresh mantou did when you broke them in half to eat on a wintery morning. There was even a little towel hanging off the edge. The room was very warm, so warm Gu Mang shivered as it sank into his skin. He hadn’t realized how cold it was outside. The snow in his hair was melting and leaving chilly trails down the back of his robe, and his hands were buzzing a little as they started defrosting, too. Like the prickle in his legs when he’d been kneeling for too long but Madam Qin would be angry if he got up before she said he could.
He turned to look uncomprehendingly at Mo Xi, who stared back at him with irritation and something else he couldn’t figure out in his eyes. It reminded him a little of Fandou sneaking glances at the feasting tables, but he didn’t understand why Mo Xi would be hungry. Mo Xi could have anything from the kitchens, whenever he wanted. “Get in,” the man said.
“Oh.” Gu Mang didn’t understand why—he was clean, he wasn’t sweaty—he wanted to ask him if maybe he’d gotten things wrong, that Gu Mang was supposed to wash the dishes, the task wasn’t supposed to be wash Gu Mang, but there wasn’t any point in arguing with him when he had that look on his face. He tugged off his boots, one by one, and then, sneaking a look at Mo Xi and finding that he’d turned away to stare at the wall, stripped off his damp robe too. Mo Xi was weird about bare skin. Gu Mang thought only pretty maidens acted like that, like the weaver-girl story Li Wei had told him about when he asked why there were flowers put all over the bridge. Zhinu had been bathing in the moonlight and then Niulang hid her clothes so she couldn’t go back up into the sky, but it’s not like Mo Xi would steal his clothes when he had plenty of his own. But that wasn’t right, Mo Xi was supposed to be Zhinu in the story, though Gu Mang knew better than to say that out loud. Even if Mo Xi was very pretty.
Gu Mang was still thinking about it when he stepped into the water, just hot enough to make his skin prickle before it settled. He sighed, happily, stretching out as much as he could in the round little tub. The hot water hurt his hands a little bit but it wasn’t a bad sort of pain, just a bit of stinging as he pushed them beneath the water. It was nice, even if he felt like an egg being poached; his limbs looked funny in the dim bathing-room light, pale and smooth like egg white in the rare patch of unscarred skin.
Suddenly, there were hands picking out the tie holding his hair-knot in place, letting the tangled mess fall down over his back and into the water. Gu Mang turned around just to see that Mo Xi had rolled up his sleeves, too, sitting on a little stool with a bath-ladle and a bottle of the nice flower-scented liquid nearby. “What are you doing?” he asked curiously.
There was an awkward pause, as if Mo Xi didn’t know either. But Gu Mang didn’t know a lot of things, so he didn’t mind waiting for Mo Xi to figure it out.
“I’m washing the snow away,” Mo Xi eventually replied, so stiffly Gu Mang could tell it wasn’t true. Anyways, there was definitely no snow in his hair anymore, it’d all melted down his back. Gu Mang considered telling him as much, but he knew that sometimes you just had to let Zhushang do his thing. That was what Li Wei had told him, as a “secret” to “make him yell at you a little less”. Li Wei did have more to say, something about “please for the sake of all of our eardrums” and “His Elderliness forgets that we mortals need sleep— ” but Gu Mang hadn’t bothered to keep listening, because Li Wei liked talking very much and sometimes didn’t know when to stop, like a clucky mother hen.
But Li Wei was very smart, and when it came to stuff like keeping Mo Xi from puffing like a hissy cat, he was right most of the time. It helped that some of what he said sounded familiar, like Gu Mang had known them a long time ago and only misplaced them somewhere. He was a good wolf—he didn’t say anything about the snowlessness of his hair, so Mo Xi didn’t need to get angry about his excuse being exposed. Gu Mang was very pleased about how well it worked.
Mo Xi’s anger seemed to be slowly dissolving, melting away, though Gu Mang guessed that anything would melt in someplace so warm. All he did was make bubbly foam with the flower-petal water like he was trying to knead Gu Mang’s head like dough, only much gentler. Just enough to make his head feel like dough, soft and pillowy and drowsy-warm in the heat of his bath. The ladle came up again, the water cascading down his back while Mo Xi’s hand pressed gently over his brow to keep it out of his eyes. Again and again, like he was a potato that needed rinsing. The bubbles filled the bath and made the water look milky, though Gu Mang couldn’t get a very good look because his eyes kept drifting shut. He yawned, and was sorry for it when Mo Xi stopped rubbing circles into his scalp.
“Are you tired?” he asked, his voice so low and warm it seemed like another curl of drifting steam, hushed and fragile like something that would be gone by morning. Gu Mang wanted to say something in answer, but he only yawned again. He tried to nod, but his head felt too heavy to move. He just leaned harder against Mo Xi’s hands, then tried to right himself once more without much success. “Sleep, then,” said Mo Xi, still just as quietly.
His thumb brushed encouragingly over the back of his head, massaging some type of scented—oil—into his hair, the cradle of his hands keeping him upright enough that Gu Mang didn’t have to do it himself anymore, so Gu Mang gave up pretending to be awake completely, even though he wasn’t asleep.
He vaguely registered that Mo Xi was doing something , pulling a comb through his hair in long strokes, smooth and rhythmic the way he would pet Fandou, sometimes. It just made him sleepier, drowsily leaning back against the tub’s wooden ledge. The towel had been moved and folded there so it was soft under his neck. Gu Mang drifted, drowsing faintly. He wondered if he snored, wondered if the kitchens would make meat buns tomorrow, wondered how many baskets he could nab before the cook lady found out and chased him out with her cleaver.
He woke up a little when he felt himself getting scooped out of the water like a fully cooked dumpling, not that there was vinegar around to dip him in. Gu Mang wondered muzzily when his little shidi had gotten so much taller he could pick up his shixiong like he barely weighed anything—
The thought broke off there, like a thin line of spider-silk that’d snapped. Gu Mang didn't know what he was thinking about, he couldn’t think about anything but getting wrapped in the warmth of a fresh robe, his hair drying with a puff of spiritual energy. He was too sleepy, too tired, the heat of the bath having soaked out some of the ache in his bones. The pain got worse when it snowed, a bitter twisting gnawing thing that felt like blackness and poison. Gu Mang couldn’t describe it right, so he didn’t bother thinking about it, most of the time. Pain was just pain. Easy to forget about, and Gu Mang was very good at forgetting.
He only realized that he’d tucked his face into the crook of Mo Xi’s neck by the way those arms suddenly stiffened around him. Gu Mang felt a little bad, but he hadn’t thought that was a rule, or that he was breaking it. He was proven right when Mo Xi didn’t get hissy or drop him like a sack of potatoes, only shifting his weight a little to tuck him gentler against his front. It was nice—it was like being held the way Gu Mang would hold a basket filled with good food from the kitchen, like a precious thing he had to be careful with for fear of losing.
For the briefest moment, he felt Mo Xi turn his face into his hair, made fluffy by the bath. Gu Mang wanted to tell him it was fine—sometimes, he would hold Fandou like that, burying his face in black fur and playing with his velvety ears, so he wouldn’t mind if Mo Xi wanted to do the same to him. It seemed like it would make him feel better if he did, but Mo Xi only let himself have the span of a single breath before pulling away. Inside his head, Gu Mang sighed. Mo Xi was very strange about what he wanted.
Eventually, he got deposited into a bed, wide and warmed and spread thickly with fox furs. They hadn’t walked back out past the courtyard, he knew it wasn’t the den he built no matter how half-asleep he was already, but it was kind of the same, anyway—it smelled like the blankets he’d stolen from where he’d slept the first night here at Xihe Manor. It smelled like Zhushang, Mo Xi, Gongzhu, Shidi…
Mo Xi left him there, tucked up warmly within the blankets, but not before whispering so quietly Gu Mang thought he wasn’t supposed to hear it at all. “Goodnight, shixiong.”
He was too tired, all of his thoughts melting and tangling together until they were one hopeless mass. My lord, my dearest, my princess… There were too many names scattered in Gu Mang’s head, like beads off a broken string. Like he lost them, or lost the right to use them.
He knew he wanted to get them back, but he didn’t remember how.