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Cold.
Xiao is cold.
Dull beeping chips at his ears, familiar but distant and cloudy. Background noise, chatter and footsteps and the roll of wheels against crisp floor. There’s an ache buried in his bones, so keenly that even to shiver hurts, and he kneads the hospital sheets with stiff hands and numb, freezing fingers. His heavy, exhausted heart stammers about in his chest, sharp prongs tripping across his sternum in icy jabs.
Hands comb his hair from out of his face, and he hears the shape of his name just over him. Blearily, he strains to open his eyes, clenching fistfuls of bedsheets in tight fists. Something soft but secure binds his wrists, restraining them and a familiar, calloused hand presses over his knuckles.
“Shhh, you’re okay, you’re okay. Shh. Don’t push yourself, love.”
Venti.
Venti Venti Venti Venti Venti—
With herculean effort Xiao pries his eyes open, barely. His surroundings are bright , monitor screens blinking sharply. He can’t read them. Venti’s eyes swim into his—or the other way around—and Xiao tries to speak, but all that comes out is a breath and another shiver.
Venti leans in. His lips settle on Xiao’s forehead. “Shhh.” A kiss, mindful. “Shh, love. You did so well.” The hand over Xiao’s knuckles squeezes, and he sees Venti’s brow furrow. “God, your hands are so cold... are you cold?”
Xiao gives as much a nod as he can. Tubes slide against his cheeks and he‘d jump out of his skin if he had the energy. Venti hisses something under his breath, distressed, and he hits a soundless red button on the side of the bed.
“Okay. Just try and relax now.” Both his hands are pressed between Venti’s. It’s warm. “Shhh. You’re doing so well. So, so well.”
Xiao struggles over the words his fuddled brain refuses to translate to his mouth, and Venti only leans in to kiss the bridge of his nose, soft and soothing sounds on his lips.
Another body joins them. He hears an exchange of conversation. A heated blanket spreads over him and he melts into the sensation, realizing just how chilled he is. Venti murmurs thank-you to the nurse, smoothing the blanket over Xiao’s arms, legs, hands. Afterwards he grips Xiao’s fingers again and Xiao feebly grips back. The warmth is making Xiao’s eyes heavy, the pain smelting with it and softening, exhaustion wrapping it all up with a tight little bow. Venti’s voice sings over him, sweet words and gentle hushing. It takes him down under breath by breath until he can finally sleep.
Xiao’s body is full of holes and plastered with electrodes. The more he’s aware of it the harder it is to rest. The pain comes and goes, as it always does; but the coming is far sharper than the going and Venti is constantly at the nurses for pain meds.
When Xiao is able to breathe on his own again, his chest clicks nauseatingly with each inhale and every attempt to get comfortable. The breathing tube down his throat is removed, but they leave the tube in his stomach a while longer. When it finally is removed that evening, he’s met with such intense nausea he nearly passes out, but he does manage not to vomit. The tubes in his chest have to stay until the excess fluids and air have been reduced. Every so often a nurse pokes him awake for a chest x-ray or to check his blood sugar. The IV sites—both of them, the one in his neck and the one nestled in the back of his hand—itch something fierce. His sternum hurts and thinking about it sickens his already frail stomach.
He wakes up with Venti at his side more often than he wakes up alone and that’s the only reason he fights so hard to open his eyes.
The ICU never turns in for the night. The lights blare constantly, machines whirring across different patients’ beds. Xiao tries to sleep through it with pathetic results. He doesn’t understand how he can be so tired and so unable to sleep.
Then they move him into his own room, when the chest tubes and prongs are gone and he’s able to recover outside of intensive care. He sobs dryly in relief the first time the lights go off, his overstimulated senses finally having the chance to breathe. Venti kisses his brow, and he sleeps like the dead.
The next morning, there are flowers and cards on his bedside table and Venti tries to convince him to eat a popsicle. It works eventually, and it’s nice, but nausea swells up midway and he isn’t able to finish.
“It’s okay, it’s just pacing,” Venti says, settling in beside him after the popsicle has been tossed. “You’re getting there, though. I’m really proud of you.”
Xiao sighs, upsetting the phlegm in his lungs. He feels and hears his chest click this time, but he’s more desensitized to it and casts it out of mind. He leans into Venti’s shoulder weakly, abruptly aware of how dizzy he’s been. Venti tuts.
“You okay?”
Xiao nods. He doesn’t have the spoons to use his voice yet, and he hopes Venti knows him well enough not to press the matter.
Their first night home is exhausting. The hospital discharges them early with a list of instructions, breathing exercises, a cardiac rehab specialist and an arsenal of upcoming follow-up appointments with the works, everything from cardiologist to surgeon to primary care physician. Venti takes them home, swinging by the pharmacy to have his medications filled. Xiao half-dozes in the passenger seat, awake enough to wince as every turn tugs at his healing wounds but not awake enough to remember any sort of conversation.
At home, Venti has him shower—something he’s supposed to do every day from here on while the incision heals—and it is as relieving as it is miserable. He drags himself into the oversized t-shirt and sweatpants that Venti chose for him, spending an entire ten seconds trying to dry his hair before his aching arms have had enough and he stumbles to the couch in the living room. Venti fusses over his wet hair and finishes drying it for him. He checks the incision, too; mottled in deep bruises, swollen, irritated. The fact that Venti is seeing it makes Xiao sick to his stomach, but then Venti kisses Xiao’s collarbone and lowers his shirt back over his chest.
“You aren’t disgusting,” Venti says as though reading his mind, cupping the base of Xiao’s skull and tipping him into his shoulder. “It looks healthy. I’m glad.”
“I feel disgusting,” Xiao mumbles.
Venti pushes against the back of Xiao’s neck with his fingertips, adding mindful pressure to the knots there. It’s nice, but does nothing for his nerves. “That doesn’t mean you are disgusting. You’re healing.”
Xiao shrugs.
They eat stew. Xiao has no appetite, but he’s lost enough weight as it is and he knows Venti is watching him, so he forces as much down as his nausea lets him. Then comes meds, mostly pills, and he gulps them down with miniscule sips of water. His chest hurts and his heart feels foreign, ambulating at a healthy pace he’s unfamiliar with. He wonders for how much longer it’ll last before relapse, and a fourth scar is added to his sternum.
They watch a goofy baking show while Venti cuddles him and Xiao is asleep before the first episode is over, drained and unable to keep his eyes open any longer.
Xiao’s sternum is declared healed seven weeks later. Venti is ecstatic, but Xiao’s emotions are a jumbled mess of mixed and paradoxical feelings. He’s still sore and there's more cardiac rehab to go, but the worst is officially over. (For now.) His cardiologist is pleased; surgeon, impressed; primary care physician, optimistic; and then Venti, all of the above and then some. He’s so over the moon, in fact, that Xiao feels guilty for not being more enthusiastic.
They get Chinese takeout that night from Xiao’s favorite restaurant on the way home. They eat on the couch. Xiao’s taste is fully back now and he hasn’t been intensely nauseous in weeks, but this night isn’t like other nights. It isn’t even like those first nights early into his recovery. The nausea is settled deep in his guts and he knows throwing up wouldn’t alleviate it.
“Well,” Venti says, standing from the couch, taking his and Xiao’s discarded takeout boxes, “that’s the last follow-up appointment in three months.” He sets the takeout boxes on the coffee table and moves into Xiao’s space again, running hands through his hair. “Healing from a procedure like that is really intense. I’m proud of you.”
Xiao swallows. “I’ll always be healing,” he croaks. Venti’s fingers go still and Xiao is torn between burying his face so Venti can’t see him, or pulling away so Venti won’t think him gross. “I’m going to get worse again, then something like this, and then I’ll have to heal again, and then I’ll get worse—”
“That isn’t what your doctors said.”
“It’s always been that way.” Another new and deep scar across his chest. Another crooked nook in his sternum. “I’m…” His chest tightens and for once it’s nothing got to do with his heart or healing bone, and he can’t take the weight of it, gripping Venti’s shoulder with one hand and ducking his head into the other. “What if I’m sick forever, Venti?”
Venti’s heart beats fast but stable in a way Xiao’s heart could never, and it’s not fair, not fair that Xiao can wholly rob Venti of today’s earned excitement in just a few breaths. Xiao sobs into his hand and it makes him lightheaded.
“What if I never heal? What if I’m always—a’always—” Tears choke him out and he coughs on loose phlegm in his throat. Venti’s hands splay out over his spine. He loves Venti and wants the best for him, and what’s best for him can’t be this.
“I’m sorry,” Xiao cries, muffled by his hand and the tears in his throat. “I’m s’sorry, Venti, I’m trying to be hopeful, I’m trying—”
Venti gathers Xiao’s head to himself, stroking the back of his neck, his damp hair, his shoulder blades. He lets Xiao cry just like that for a while, quietly soothing fingers over his skin, and Xiao cries, feeling pathetic and stupid. Venti’s supported him through so much, consistently and without fail. He doesn’t deserve this.
“S’Sorry,” Xiao pushes Venti’s hands away, scrubbing his face, pushing himself to his feet. “I, I need to go—”
“Xiao.”
Venti catches his wrist and it reminds Xiao of the restraints they put on him in the ICU to keep him from yanking his tubes out while he was still too unaware to know what they were. His lungs hitch and he has to grab ahold of the edge of the side table to catch himself.
“Xiao, listen to me. Please.”
“I’m not going to burden you,” Xiao squeezes out. “I won’t, I—I can’t—”
“Xiao, turn around.”
Xiao turns around.
Venti’s lips press against his.
It’s warm. Chapped, damp, warm . Xiao startles, dragging his fingernails against the table behind him as he scrambles for purchase, the air in his chest flooding up into his head. He’s so lightheaded it’s nearly nauseating, but the stark warmth of it all chases the sickly feeling away.
Venti is so, so warm.
Venti draws away for a moment or two—long enough for Xiao to inhale, but not to exhale—and then they’re against each other again, and Venti presses deeper while Xiao slides his palms up Venti’s sides to his shoulders, the small of his back digging uncomfortably into the table’s edge. Venti cups the back of his head, knots his hair between his fingers and pulls him in closer. Closer. Xiao’s eyes burn, heart pounding, and he clutches at Venti’s shoulders and half-sobs into his mouth. He feels Venti’s heart throb against his own.
Venti pulls away, half a breath—then, hanging off of each other and swallowing each other’s gasps, he stumbles them back toward the couch and presses Xiao into it. Xiao doesn’t have the time to adjust to the sudden rush of blood in his head; Venti bends over him, arms caging in his head and fingers still tangled against his scalp. Venti meets him deeply with another breath-robbing kiss. Xiao tastes Venti’s tears, feels them splash on his cheeks. He tries to kiss back, but is so overwhelmed that he can’t beyond whimpered, throttled noises and wet gasps.
He sobs, too, and Venti comes up only for air before their lips meet again. He grips Xiao’s hair, tugs him closer, closer—Xiao keens, arching willingly into Venti’s grasp as his heart flutters and screams. He can’t breathe; doesn’t care; doesn’t want to. Lightheaded, nauseous; warm, warm, warm—
Venti pulls away, finally, and Xiao’s thin chest heaves for air, lungs crackling with the effort. He sobs again and then Venti sobs, too, leaning over him to rest their foreheads together. He’s close enough that Xiao can map out the different colors of his teary irises, the seafoam green that bleeds into butterfly blue and the speckles of white like dandelion seeds cast by wisher’s breath. Xiao’s heart jackhammers against his ribs.
“I’m not—” Xiao can’t breathe, can’t speak, the tears thick and sticky in his throat. “I’m not wh—what you deserve—”
Venti kisses him. It doesn’t shut him up, because he’s still a blubbering mess of tears and whimpers and yearning; but then, so is Venti, and the kiss does white-out his mind for as long as it lasts and quiets the words in his throat.
“Don’t,” Venti begs into his skin, before flattening his palms over Xiao’s cheeks and kissing him, hard. Xiao whines, chokes on a breath. “I love you,” Venti promises fiercely. “And if you still can’t see it after all this time,“ Press; sob; kiss, deep, whole, “then I’ll show you again, and again, and again—“
Xiao sobs loudly and Venti swallows it up. His hands slip under Xiao’s hoodie, palming over his stomach—his ribs—lingering over his heart—his collarbones—and Xiao cries, and cries, and cries, even as Venti tries to distract him with gentle kisses.
“Love,” Venti pleads, pressing a kiss to Xiao’s temple, his cheeks soaked in tears of his own, “please—please, Xiao. You’re beautiful.”
“V-Venti—”
“You’re so, so beautiful,” Venti whispers, splaying his hands over Xiao’s too-prominent and bony ribs. His eyes are closer, and the brokenness in them would surely make Xiao cry if he weren’t already. “You’re a fighter, Xiao.” His voice quakes, eyes red from tears, filling afresh. “I love you so, so much.”
Xiao breaks and Venti breaks over him, all tears and half-breaths and sloppy but sure kisses. Xiao’s hands slip into Venti’s hair by his braids, gripping, and Venti wraps both arms beneath Xiao’s shoulders and presses him against his chest, bodies flush. Xiao sucks in a breath and Venti hushes him, even as his wrung-out voice trembles with emotion, and kisses him again. Xiao loses himself in it, twisting Venti’s hair between his fingers, squeezing his burning eyes shut, counting their joined heartbeats. Still crying. Venti’s crying, too.
It never goes beyond kissing, but they must lie together for hours. Xiao runs out of strength to do more than breathe and Venti frantically hovers, skirting his hands across Xiao’s chest soothingly and pressing two fingers against the fluttering pulse in his neck. Xiao tells him he’s okay, just exhausted—which is true. Venti tucks one more kiss under his fringe against his temple, and Xiao chokes on one more dry sob, too tired even to cry again.
Venti finds the throw blanket draped over the back of the couch and bundles them together, drawing Xiao’s head to the crook of his neck, already peppering tiny kisses all over his hair. Xiao’s arms weave around Venti’s waist and yank him close, closer. Venti giggles into his hairline. Xiao feels it everywhere.
“I love you wholly,” Venti says, resting the side of his head against the top of Xiao’s. Warmth. “Even if you can’t believe it for yourself, believe me.”
Xiao can’t cry, can’t speak, can hardly breathe, and now that the adrenaline has receded all the pain is returning. His heart hurts and small but deeply cruel stabbings of pain pins all over his chest, deeper than any heat or cool can soothe. It bleeds into his blood, pours over his joints, seeps into his cranium. It feels acidic, and bile scorches his throat.
But despite it, he nods. Because Venti isn’t a liar—not when it comes to Xiao—and even if Xiao can’t understand why or how a person like Venti could choose a person like him, he trusts Venti with his everything.
Venti clutches him close, blunt nails scraping over Xiao’s scalp gently. “Good,” Venti breathes, his voice so heavy with relief that he sounds almost drunk. “Good.”
Xiao listens to the hollow echo of Venti’s warm heartbeat in his neck until his body can’t take anymore, and he melts into Venti’s love and sleeps.