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A hunch. A funny feeling. Instincts. Whatever it is, Guizhong wakes up to it in the middle of the night—wide awake, indefinitely, like she’s been awake staring at the ceiling for hours. Her husband sleeps soundly beside her. It wouldn’t be hard to nestle into him and sleep again, but there’s a feeling in her gut that says something is wrong.
Did she leave the leftovers out from dinner last night? Did she forget to set her alarm? She checks her phone, squinting slightly, and no, she didn’t forget her alarm. No one texted her through the night, either. It’s just 1:17am. Maybe she left a door unlocked. That doesn’t seem like her or Zhongli, but it’s worth checking.
Quietly, shaking the bed as little as she can, she slides out from under the covers and to her feet. Zhongli stirs, but all it takes is her stroking his hair for a moment before he settles again. She smiles a little, wonders how silly it is that that of all things makes her heart swell.
She pads from their bedroom into the hall, then to the kitchen. She did put the leftovers away, just like she thought. But then she checks the doors and they’re locked, too, from the front door to the back door. Maybe she just woke up for no reason? A product of her thirties? Still seems unlikely, but not impossible. She’s always slept the night through before.
Maybe Xiao…?
She turns toward the closed door of his bedroom, hesitating. She trusts he didn’t run again—she trusts he wouldn’t —and checking on him in the middle of the night feels like betraying that. But that feeling in her gut hasn’t gone away, and she wouldn’t be checking on him because she was afraid he ran. She just wants to check on him.
So, she makes the decision to check, toeing toward his door. She reaches for the knob, but the door was never closed all the way, and all there is to it is to give it a push.
That’s when she hears coughing.
She’s relieved at first, because it means Xiao is here—but the coughing is wet, and doesn’t stop at just one or two.
Abruptly bold and worried, she pushes the door open purposefully. Xiao isn’t in bed, but his bathroom door is ajar with the light on, and she hurries over.
“Xiao?” she says, more to let him know she’s here than to get his attention. “Xiao, are you alright?”
She reaches the door before getting a response, and pushes it open fully.
Xiao lies curled up on the bathroom floor close to the toilet, shivering violently with his cheeks deeply flushed. He’s pulled a hoodie on, still in the sweatpants he always sleeps in, but it doesn’t help the tremors and his hair is caked to his face with sweat.
“Xiao.” Guizhong steps over the threshold and kneels, touching his head with the back of her hand. “Oh love, you’re burning up.”
Thank goodness for gut feelings. Xiao might’ve stayed on the bathroom floor all night otherwise, sick and alone. She combs his hair out of his face, and slowly, he opens his eyes to look at her, his gaze painted and wet with fever.
“Hey,” she whispers. “How long have you been sick?”
“Dunno,” Xiao croaks, half-drowned. “I… don’t know.”
He coughs, snapping his sleeves to his face to stifle them and curling into himself.
“That doesn’t sound good,” she murmurs, rubbing his back while he recovers his breath. “Come, love, let’s get you to bed. It probably feels nice, but resting on the cold bathroom floor isn’t helping you any.”
“M’ dizzy.”
“That’s alright, I’ll help you to bed. Have you thrown up at all?”
“No, but I—“ He coughs twice more. “I thought I was going to. M’ okay.”
“Okay. Lean on me, alright? I promise I can take it. I won’t drop you.”
Xiao nods, and she takes him by the forearms, steadying him as he sits up, then getting on one knee and encouraging him to stand. He copies her, and she wraps an arm around his waist, the other gripping his arm. His head tips into her collar and she feels his fever burn.
“There we go, there we go…”
Xiao isn’t heavy, but he’s unsteady, pliant, and it takes some maneuvering to make it out of the bathroom. She helps him settle into bed, smoothing a blanket over him when chills burst across his skin, then leans in to kiss the faint scar on his hairline.
“Hang tight, I’m going to get Zhongli.”
Xiao nods, and she makes her way quickly back to hers and her husband’s bedroom, the need to be quiet dead and gone. She shoulders the door open and walks briskly in.
“Zhongli.” Guizhong shakes him firmly. “Zhongli, wake up.”
It takes a second—he’s never been the quickest to rise in the morning—but he stirs before she has to try again. “Mmm, what is it?”
“Xiao’s sick.”
Zhongli’s up, tossing back the covers and following her out of bed. “Sick, sick how?”
“It looks like the flu,” Guizhong says, “but I’m not sure—“
Xiao is in the middle of a vicious, heaving coughing fit when they hustle back. Guizhong wastes no time reaching his side, Zhongli close behind, and she gathers Xiao’s hair away from his face and pulls him upright.
“Come here, come here,” she says, drawing one hand up and down his back and bracing him with the other. Xiao coughs, his face a ghastly shade of white and soaked in sweat. “You’re alright, I have you,” she soothes, “I have you, love. Let me have you.”
Zhongli reaches out to stroke Xiao’s hair. “Come now, deep breath. Breathe, Xiao.”
Xiao tries, but his lungs crackle and he coughs violently. Guizhong hushes him and rubs his back until it’s finished.
“It’s in his lungs,” Zhongli says. “You can hear it.”
Guizhong nods, stroking Xiao’s back with mindful pressure while he breathes. “Take him for a moment, I’ll get the kettle going.”
Zhongli nods, sliding his arms alongside hers, one around Xiao’s back and the other against his chest. Xiao falls into his side willingly while Guizhong slips to her feet and makes herself scarce. She doesn’t expect tea to cure him, but anything that could ease his symptoms is worth a try.
She fills the kettle and sets it to boil, and while she’s waiting prepares a mug with honey, lemon, and a bag of fresh chamomile tea. She hears Xiao coughing again from his bedroom. Now that Zhongli said so out loud, she can’t unhear the deep rattling in Xiao’s chest.
The kettle whistles, and she cuts it off, stirs the hot water into the mug, leaves the spoon and takes it to Xiao’s bedroom. He’s still coughing.
“You’re alright,” Zhongli is murmuring. “Easy...”
She toes the door open and moves inside. Zhongli has both hands on Xiao’s shoulders, massaging gently while he folds into himself. The coughs die down, but incompletely. Zhongli finds her eyes. It’s been a long time since she’s seen him this worried.
“Here, Xiao.” Guizhong sits on the bed beside him, reaching out with a free hand to stroke the back of his neck. His fever is so, so high. “I brought you some tea, would you try sipping a bit? It may help the coughing.”
Xiao doesn’t move, but she’s sure this’ll help, if nothing else to soothe his poor throat. She coaxes him up gently, stroking his neck, his head, his hair—until eventually he unfolds himself, and leans back into Zhongli while she guides his hands around the mug. He looks awful, exhaustedly pliant but tense from pain, features pinched in discomfort and skin waxy with illness. Even his breathing shakes with whatever’s trapped in his chest.
“Drink as much as you can,” Guizhong says, thumbing his white knuckles. “It’s alright if you can’t finish.”
She hopes that he will, but encouraging him to push himself isn’t worth it.
Xiao blinks into the cup, sniffling when the steam clouds in his face, and then carefully takes a sip. Then another sip. Another. Guizhong settles down beside him opposite Zhongli, resting a hand at the crook of Xiao’s elbow. Several sips later, Xiao lowers the mug into his lap and stares out into space, blinking slowly, his eyes glazed over.
Zhongli smooths Xiao’s fringe out of the way before pressing a hand to Xiao’s forehead. “Oh, that’s high,” he hisses. “Can you take him while I grab the thermometer, Guizhong?”
She nods, already wrapping her arm around his shoulders and plucking the mug from his lap before he can spill it on himself. Zhongli gets to his feet and Xiao drops his head against Guizhong’s collar. She kisses his hair.
“You’re alright,” she murmurs. “Talk to me, now, how do you feel?”
“... Sick...?”
“Where is it most uncomfortable, love.”
“I dunno, my... chest? But it’s everywhere. I think. And it’s hot. The tea was good.”
Pangs splice across her heart. She can’t help but tug him closer, just scarcely stifling the urge to kiss his head again. “What do you need?”
“... My head really hurts.”
“Okay.” Guizhong withdraws, cupping his flushed face between her palms and smiling warmly. Xiao blinks back. “Will you be alright alone for just a bit? I can’t imagine Zhongli will be much longer.”
Xiao nods, maybe too quickly, but he’s also sick and listless and looks exhausted. Maybe a bit of space to settle himself while his cough is at ease would be good for him.
“It’s fine,” Xiao says. He leans into her hands with a complicated expression. “You guys don’t have to make a big deal about it. I’ll get better.”
“Ah,” she smiles, leaning in and lifting his head until they’re nose to nose, “but where’s the fun in that, love?
His brows furrow, and she melts, her heart both full and aching, and she drops a lingering kiss to his hairline, thumbing beads of sweat from his cheeks.
“I know it’s hard to understand,” she says gently, “but we do enjoy taking care of you. Try and settle down, yes? Zhongli and I are only rooms away if you need us.”
Xiao nods, picking at the hem of his hoodie sleeves like he always does when he has something to say but not the words to say it. She lifts herself from the bed to her feet and leaves to prepare a cold compress.
39.9
“That can’t be right.” Out of habit, Zhongli shakes up the digital thermometer vigorously. It of course, unlike mercury, doesn’t budge. “Maybe the thermometer has gone off, we don’t use it often—”
“Zhongli,” Guizhong says, firm but mindful, and with a jerk of her head in Xiao’s direction. “It took him ages to fall asleep, do not wake him.”
“Guizhong, his fever—”
“He only just took tylenol, and we’re keeping that compress on his head,” she tells him. “We can check his temperature again the next time he’s awake, but his body needs to rest.”
Zhongli makes a muted but frustrated sound, and for a moment she has this mental picture of him hurling the thermometer out the window. “I know,” he acquiesces, “I know, it’s just—there’s really nothing more we can do for him? Nothing.”
“We’ve been doing,” she reminds him, softening her tone now that he’s softened his. “But rest is the most important thing for him at this point, and we can’t do that for him.”
“I only—“ He stops, sighs hard, glares down at the thermometer one more time before dropping his arm. “I worry.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t think he could get so sick.”
“He’ll be fine,” she says. “Unlike every other time before this, he has us. He’s going to be okay.”
Xiao coughs himself awake about twenty minutes later at roughly three in the morning. He stifles his coughs into the blankets at first, but then they deepen, and become choked, and Guizhong draws him up. Half-asleep, still muffling his coughs with his hands, he tries to jerk away from her.
“Shh, shh, it’s alright, it’s just me,” Guizhong hushes, bracing him. He stops fighting, but his shoulders lurch with his coughs and his lungs crackle like ice under pressure. She fishes the small trash can from under his desk and leans him over it.
“Cough it up,” she coaxes, tugging his wrists down from his face. “Don’t smother yourself, love, get it up. I have you.”
He coughs until he gags and brings up a mouthful of whatever’s trapped in his lungs, and then he hacks some more. She squeezes his shoulders, her already rampant worry nestling itself deeper. It sounds bad, and if there’s really so much gunk clogging up his lungs…
Xiao spits into the trash can and gasps for breath, the fit finally over. “That‘s... so fucking gross.”
Guizhong snorts, taking the trash can from his lap and returning it to the floor. “It is,” Guizhong says, “but I can’t imagine how poorly you must be feeling.”
He nods. Instinctively, she opens up her arms—but then Xiao actually falls into them, pushing his head under her chin and sighing with his whole body. Her own breath hitches, like she’s the one about to cough. Then the warmth explodes when she realizes, and she wraps him up tightly, secure and safe. Xiao hums, so small and so shortly that it must have been unintentional.
“I’m tired,” Xiao admits quietly.
She listens, lifting a hand to the back of his head and gently scratching his scalp.
“... Where’s Zhongli?”
“Out,” she whispers back. “He ran to the store for a few things, he’ll be home soon.”
Xiao nods. She glances over his head at the nightstand, spotting all their attempts attempts at soothing him: the cold mug of unfinished tea, the thermometer, bottle of tylenol, cold compress, water bottles... Xiao is dehydrated, and she needs to take his temperature, but this is the first time he’s let her—no, not let her, met her halfway so that she could hold him. She isn’t ready to let him go so soon.
But more than that, she can’t bear the thought of him becoming sicker.
“Alright, now,” she murmurs, taking his shoulders. “You need to drink something, but let me take your temperature first, alright?”
He nods, struggling to keep his head up. She settles him back against his pillows, tucking the blanket comfortably around him when he shivers. His fever is still high, but he hasn’t stopped sweating, and he’s lucid, if miserable. Those are both good signs.
“Guizhong?”
Zhongli, from the living room. She didn’t even hear the door open. “Still here,” she calls back. “Xiao’s awake.”
Footsteps, then in comes Zhongli, a reusable grocery bag at his elbow. He looks moderately frazzled, breathing a bit hard, and Guizhong exhales with a smile.
“You didn’t have to run the whole way,” she says.
Zhongli gawks at her. “I didn’t— run, I hustled.”
“Run sounds better,” Xiao croaks.
It throws him into another coughing fit. He tries to tuck it in his elbow, but Guizhong takes up the trash can again and pulls his arm away. Zhongli hurries over, dropping the bag onto the table.
It’s worse. Xiao coughs and coughs and coughs until his desperate gasps between them wheeze and throttle, and each hacking sound is deeper than the last. Guizhong grips his arm and Zhongli takes his shoulders. Xiao keeps coughing. Gasping.
“Breathe, love,” she urges. She’s been worried since the start of that gut feeling, but this is the first time she’s been afraid . “Please breathe, please.”
“Xiao.” Zhongli wraps his hand around Xiao’s trembling fingers. “Xiao, squeeze my hand.”
Guizhong’s eyes lock on their fingers, and she sees just the slightest movement of Xiao tightening his grip. He coughs, gags—then the coughing tapers off, his head hanging off of heaving shoulders.
But something is wrong. He’s still gasping for air, but his breaths whistle, wheezing like they’re being pulled through a straw and his face has no color, his fingernails digging into Zhongli’s hands, white-knuckles and discolored fingertips.
He can’t breathe.
“Get the car,” Zhongli says loudly, one arm swinging under Xiao’s knees and the other wrapping around his shoulders. Guizhong tears down the hall, snatching her car keys, purse, shoes. Her heart thrashes between her chest and her throat.
Zhongli meets her in the entryway, carrying Xiao close to his chest. Xiao is breathing, but his thin chest heaves for it. His lungs sound stuck. Or shrunk down.
Zhongli slips his shoes on, Guizhong gets the door. It’s warm for 3am this time of year, a blessing. She sprints ahead of Zhongli for the car door, swinging it open for him and immediately running round to the driver seat. She slams the keys into the ignition, warms the car up.
“I’ll sit with him,” Zhongli tells her.
She nods, and the moment Zhongli yanks the passenger door shut she switches gears and flies out of the driveway.
The hospital isn’t far. Should they have called an ambulance? She grips the wheel, bearing her eyes into the road. It’s not far. An ambulance might’ve taken too long. Focus. Focus.
“You’re alright,” Zhongli murmurs to Xiao behind her, “try taking deep breaths if you can, love.”
She glances in the mirror. He has Xiao tucked under his chin, holding both his hands. She bears right and hits the freeway.
“He’s really fighting to breathe, Guizhong,” Zhongli says.
She can hear it. The twisted juxtaposition of reassurance that he is breathing to the terror in knowing he isn’t breathing enough makes her blood icy.
The hospital is two exits away. Is it too late to call an ambulance?
Should they call an ambulance? They’re so close, they’d most likely reach the ER before an ambulance reached them, but if an ambulance brought him in they’d prioritize his needs and they’d be able to help him breathe—
“Be strong, Xiao,” Zhongli whispers, “we’re nearly there, you’re doing so well.”
She passes the second to last exit, then takes the one branching off toward the hospital. She forgot, briefly, that she wasn’t alone. The ER has to take him seriously.
Xiao’s fingers have twisted into the collar of Zhongli’s sweater, shoulders hunching as he coughs. Guizhong bears right, then left; then right into the hospital parking lot.
It’s packed, without a single open spot anywhere near the building itself. Doesn’t matter. She sees the entrance doors to the emergency room and swerves toward the curb, pressing into the brakes.
“Go, I’ll park,” Guizhong says before the car’s fully stopped. Zhongli nods, and as soon as the wheels still he throws the passenger door open, gathers Xiao into his chest and, with a final thankful but terrified acknowledgement to Guizhong, he hurries onto the curb and toward the entrance. She tears her gaze away.
By the time she finds a parking place, her hands are filmy with sweat and she’s fighting against a fierce burn in her eyes. They should have taken Xiao sooner, she should have known something was wrong. If they’d taken him in sooner—
She yanks the car into park, gathers her phone and wallet with all Xiao’s medical cards (should’ve given it to Zhongli, damn it) and slams the car door behind her.
The ER is disturbingly full. She skids to a halt, whipping to and fro for any sign of her husband and kid, over the heads of people and every filled waiting room chair. For as many people are here, Zhongli and Xiao aren’t. There's that juxtaposition of feelings again: relief that they must have recognized the straits and taken Xiao right away, but terror that in a sea of people needing care, his was dire enough to be prioritized over many.
She waits in line for reception, preemptively picking Xiao’s medical cards from the stack of them in her wallet. She waits, bouncing on her heels. Three more people in line ahead of her. Her phone buzzes and she nearly flings the cards from her hand as she scrambles to reach it.
[qin ai de]
They took us back already, running vitals. His oxygen levels are low.
Waiting for a room.
[baobei]
Thank you, I just got in.
I’m in line at reception. They’re letting you stay with him, aren’t they?
[qin ai de]
Yes.
His fever’s gone up, they’re putting the IV catheter in now to speed the process along once a room opens. They want him on fluids immediately.
“Next?”
Guizhong snaps her head up, meeting eyes with the receptionist’s beckoning. She shoves her phone into her back pocket and hurries forward.
“Yes, hi,” she says, setting the medical cards on the desk, “my husband came in with our son just a few minutes ago, I have all his information.”
“What’s your son’s name?”
“Xiao Liu.”
“Alright, and his date of birth?”
She reads it off the top of her head.
“Your name?”
“Guizhong.”
“And your husband’s name?”
“Zhongli.”
She taps at her computer, then scrolls a bit. “Alright, if you could hand me your ID and his insurance cards.”
It isn’t a long process, but her heart pounds every second of it. Her phone buzzes again and she tears it out while the receptionist clacks in information on her computer.
[qin ai de]
A nurse should retrieve you soon, I asked if they would
Still waiting on a room
Xiao wants me to tell you not to worry
That makes her want to cry.
[baobei]
You tell that boy I’ll worry about him as much as I like
[qin ai de]
He rolled his eyes
“Alright,” the receptionist says, and Guizhong looks up, taking the cards back from her. “The doctors know you’re here, a nurse should come soon to take you to your son, okay? You can have a seat until then.”
“Okay.” She nods, in an attempt to smooth some of her nerves. “Thank you.”
She moves from the reception, but doesn’t take a seat. There aren’t many open ones, and as it is she’s too frazzled to even conceptualize resting, even for a moment. She fishes out her phone again, Zhongli’s messages still open.
[baobei]
How is he?
[qin ai de]
Hanging in there. He’s breathing a little easier, but his oxygen levels are still low. Fever’s holding.
Oh, they’re moving us to a room.
She paces, methodically refreshing her phone just in case she missed something. Seventeen minutes go by.
[qin ai de]
They just did an EKG, his heart is healthy.
Gave him something through a nebulizer, putting him on oxygen.
They’re doing a chest X-ray next and possibly a CT scan
We have a room now
Her heart throbs against her throat.
[baobei]
Have they found out what’s wrong?
[qin ai de]
They’re looking for pneumonia
Depending on the chest X-ray and CT they may or may not admit him
Pneumonia. Their baby could have pneumonia and they had no idea.
[qin ai de]
Finished the X-ray, but it will take time to develop
“Liu?”
Guizhong pivots sharply, finding the nurse who called out. They make eye contact and Guizhong hurries over, half-tripping over herself.
“Your son’s name and date of birth?” the nurse asks, looking down at her clipboard as she holds the door for Guizhong. Guizhong recounts it quickly and the nurse nods, beckoning her to follow. Guizhong expects some kind of debriefing, or to at least be told what she’s to expect—but the nurse remains quiet, dutifully leading the way between the sliding glass doors and rail curtains of each room. It’s all very crisp and precise.
Eventually, the nurse stops in front of one of the rooms, and she raps her knuckles on the door twice before sliding it back. There's still a curtain in the way, but the nurse steps aside to let Guizhong in, nodding, and Guizhong thanks her and steps around the curtain, hearing the door shut behind her.
Zhongli is seated by Xiao’s hospital bed, which has been propped to reclining to help his lungs. An oxygen mask rests over his mouth and nose, the tank humming; the IV drip is clear, colorless and half-empty; Xiao’s levels peep and bounce across the monitoring screen—oxygen, pulse, blood pressure… and then Xiao, he looks so much worse in a hospital bed with machines and tubes everywhere, his cheeks still flushed from fever with dark rings under his eyes. Whether he’s sleeping, dozing or too out of it to acknowledge her, it doesn’t matter. His eyes are closed, and he isn’t struggling desperately to breathe anymore.
“Love.” Zhongli stands to meet her, wrapping her up against his chest. She returns the hug briefly.
“He’s asleep?” she asks, glancing over at Xiao.
Zhongli nods, following her gaze. “He was out as soon as they put him on oxygen,” he says. “They’re giving him medicine through the IV as well, and they said it could make him drowsy. It’s most likely a combination of things.”
She nods. It’s hard to believe this is what’s best for him; she wants nothing more than to bring him home, where they aren’t surrounded by strangers who could barge in at any time, where he’s familiar with his surroundings and can recover in his own bed in the peace of his own home. But he needs this.
“You said they were thinking about admitting him,” Guizhong whispers, “have you heard anything more…?”
Zhongli shakes his head. “It depends on the test results, and they haven’t done the CT scan yet. It’s going to take some time before we know.”
She nods. Of course. These things take time.
Together, mutually unspoken, they take a seat on either side of Xiao’s bed. Guizhong settles her hand over his, nearly recoiling at how cold his fingers are compared to his burning brow. She rubs her thumb over his knuckles. A headache throbs against her temples, building as the masking adrenaline wears thin.
“How did it come to this?” she whispers.
“We didn’t know,” Zhongli says, calm, but she knows him too well. There’s dormant guilt behind each word. “It happened so fast, baobei, we couldn’t have known.”
Xiao stirs with a soft wheeze of distress, his brow furrowing.
“Shh,” Zhongli soothes, leaning in. He strokes Xiao’s forehead gently, twisting his hair back behind his ear. “You’re alright, Xiao.”
“We’re here, love,” Guizhong promises, “we’ve got you.”
Xiao squeezes his eyes shut tighter before opening them, squinting against the lights. Zhongli hops out of his seat to dim them.
“Guizhong…?” Xiao croaks. His voice is thick and gravelly, confused. She barrels past the stinging tears in her eyes to smile gently at him.
“We’re both here,” she says, “me and Zhongli. You’re alright.”
Xiao blinks, frowning, reaching for his face with his free hand—but he doesn’t get far before Zhongli catches it.
“It’s just the oxygen mask, Xiao, it’s alright,” Zhongli says. “Leave it be.”
Understanding flashes through Xiao’s glassy eyes, and he gives as much of a nod as he can, weak as he is.
“Are they gonna make me stay?” Xiao asks.
“We don’t know yet,” Zhongli answers honestly. “But there is a good chance they will.”
Xiao sighs, and then coughs. And coughs. And coughs. Guizhong has scarcely thought to do something before Zhongli is already doing, pulling the oxygen mask under his chin and tipping him forward by the shoulders. The coughs are viciously productive, guttural. He chokes over a plastic bin Zhongli settles in his lap, and Guizhong holds his hair out of his face while Zhongli supports his weight.
“Easy,” Zhongli says. “Easy, Xiao, you’re alright.”
It’s hard enough, helpless to watch and unable to act—then Guizhong realizes Xiao’s clutching his ribs, and her heart splits open all over again.
The coughing tapers off at long last and he’s left gasping and wheezing for air. Zhongli pulls the oxygen mask back over his mouth and nose and Guizhong takes the bin away.
“Breathe, love,” Zhongli murmurs. Instead of easing Xiao back against the bed, he tucks Xiao into his side and wraps his arms around him. “Breathe.”
It’s a while before Xiao has any breath back. Guizhong reaches to stroke his hair, her eyes watching his vitals as the numbers bounce around some more before finally settling into consistency. Not… what they should be, but consistent, and relatively safe.
“I’m okay,” Xiao gasps, then coughs just twice, but Zhongli still squeezes him closer and Guizhong rubs his back. “M’ okay.”
“You are not,” Zhongli says sternly, but there's a sort of helpless affection about it, too, and he sighs into Xiao’s hair. “What else could it possibly take,” he murmurs, “before you learn that we’re happy to be there for you to lean on, Xiao?”
Poor Xiao wasn’t ready for that at all, Guizhong can tell. His expression is caught between a scruffed cat and a turtle moments before it pops back into its shell. She almost wants to ask Zhongli to ease up a little on the emotional bombshells until they’re out of the ER, but Xiao probably needed to hear it. He breathes some more, carefully controlled, and leans his head on Zhongli’s shoulder.
“I don’t know,” Xiao says quietly. “I… want to. I just forget.”
“You’re allowed to,” Guizhong says, “and you know that, right?”
“... I think I forget that sometimes, too.”
The nurse pokes her head in with news about the CT scan, which is just as well, probably. Xiao needs to rest.
The chest X-ray proved it. Fluid in his lungs, enough to get him admitted for pneumonia. They still want to run the CT scan, though—checking for blood clots and achieving a wider overall picture of the situation, and Guizhong appreciates them for being thorough. She’s had one too many ERs cut corners on her and Zhongli and she would not stand for them going those same angles with Xiao.
The doctor who comes to talk to them before the CT scan is pleasant, and calls Xiao “kiddo,” which settles Guizhong’s nerves a little.
“We’re gonna have you hold your breath sometimes to get the best images we can,” the doctor says. “I know your breathing’s pretty rough, so just do your best, alright?”
The CT scan takes an hour. Xiao is returned to them in his room, frustrated and miserable.
“I kept coughing,” Xiao croaks.
The doctor’s smile is sympathetic. He turns to Guizhong and Zhongli. “We’ll be back with discharge papers and the transfer paperwork,” the doctor tells them. “It should have all the information. Do you have any more questions for me?”
“Are we taking an ambulance?” Zhongli asks.
The doctor nods. “Yeah, that’s standard procedure. With how hard he’s working to breathe, we don’t want him off oxygen. Unfortunately, we can only have one extra passenger in the ambulance with us—do either of you have an alternate form of transportation?”
“I’ll take the car,” Guizhong and Zhongli say at the same time.
They whip around to meet each other’s stare, looking just as baffled. The doctor chuckles.
“Well, I’ll let you sort that out in the meantime,” he says. “Anything else I can do for you?”
She can’t think of anything, and neither can Zhongli. They thank him for everything he’s done for Xiao, and with one final smile and a genuine well-wish of good luck, he leaves them be and the door shuts at his back.
“I don’t mind taking the car,” Zhongli tells her before she can start the same conversation. “You can ride with Xiao in the ambulance.”
“Zhongli,” she says, “you’re far more meticulous with detail than I am. I don’t want to miss anything.”
Zhongli chuckles gently, stepping close to her and leaning his head into hers. It comes so suddenly that she jumps.
“You wouldn’t miss anything,” Zhongli says, as sure of it as though he were swearing on his own life. “Not for him. Not for either of us.”
“You always sound so sure.”
He smiles. “I married you,” he says. “Of course I’m sure.”
Xiao is in the hospital for three days.
Zhongli had the foresight to run home for supplies between the ER and the hospital, so they had comforts from home and fresh clothes from the first day. Guizhong nearly ran him over in her haste to hug and thank him. He kissed her.
Xiao slept most of the stay. Between his immune system working overtime, the IV drugs and incessant coughing fits that the doctors couldn’t medicate, not to mention his fever and every other symptom, the poor thing was exhausted and very rarely awake. When he was awake, it was only because he was too uncomfortable or in too much pain to sleep, or the antibiotics made him nauseous, or his coughing fits woke him up and refused to let him go.
The doctors wouldn’t do anything for the coughing; he needed to get the mucus out of his lungs somehow, and she and Zhongli understood that, but that didn’t make it easy. Especially when Xiao started trying to swallow his coughs anyway because coughing made his ribs ache. Zhongli and Guizhong had to take turns holding each other back from fighting the doctors.
But, they make it home. Eventually they make it home, Zhongli helping Xiao inside while Guizhong unpacked the car. Xiao is exhausted and listless, but awake enough to stomach a gentle meal and take a shower. He falls asleep on the couch, dressed in his most comfortable clothes with his damp hair leaving a spot on the arm of the couch. Zhongli and Guizhong take turns sitting with him that night, listening to him breathe. He sleeps all the way through.
After that first night, his recovery is non-linear. Xiao is miserable come morning, coughing as often as he breathes and choking mucus into the trash can they left by the couch. It’s extreme enough that they have to wonder if they shouldn’t take him back to the ER, but luckily by that afternoon it calms down some, and he’s able to move to his room and get an early start on that night’s sleep. It isn’t as smooth as the first night, but he sleeps with minimal interruptions, and his coughing fits don’t last.
The third day he’s home from the hospital, Guizhong steps down the hall toward his room and is just preparing to knock, medications in one hand with her other raised at the ajar door, when she hears his voice from inside and pauses.
“Hey, yeah, sorry I missed our date,” Xiao is saying. “I got pneumonia and ended up in the hospital. But I’m home now.”
“WHAT.”
Oh, that’s Venti. Guizhong would recognize his voice anywhere, speakerphone or in person or otherwise.
“I’m—“
“You have pneumonia!? And you were in the hospital—oh my god, are you okay? Are you feeling better? Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine,” Xiao says. “It’s just hard to breathe sometimes and I’ve been up coughing a lot at night.”
“Oh… can you take cough medicine for it? You sound tired.”
“No, my body’s trying to get the crap out of my lungs and I guess coughing is the best way for it to do that.”
“Right, okay… god, Xiao, I had no idea you were so sick, I could’ve brought you s—I could still bring you something? My granddad has this baller soup recipe, I could bring it over to you guys in time for dinner?”
“I don’t wanna get you sick.”
“OH, I meant I’d drop it off! Yeah, I don’t know what germs I’ve got either and your immune system’s probably clocking overtime, I don’t wanna land you in the hospital again. I could leave it on the porch and run away, you’d never even know I was there.”
“I mean—”
“I just realized I could leave soup on your porch and run away regardless of whether or not you say I can.”
“I’m not gonna be able to talk you out of this, am I?”
“You sure can try!”
“Got it. Okay. Um.” He sighs, halting when his lungs hitch. “L-Let me ask my parents before you do anything. They might already have plans for dinner.”
“Mm, sounds good! If so I can bring dinner over another night, just let me know. Sleep a lot, drink water like a fish, don’t poke holes in my fish-water logic and don’t strain yourself. And, Xiao, promise me you’ll let Zhongli and Guizhong take care of you, okay? They love you.”
She holds her breath.
“I know,” Xiao says quietly. “I promise I’ll try.”
“Wellp, that’s all I can ask for. Do your best! Let me know about dinner, too, and text me if you guys have any food allergies so I don’t accidentally poison someone.”
“Gotcha, okay. Thanks.”
“Thanks for calling! I’m here if you need anything.”
“Thank you, Venti. Goodbye.”
“Bye! Rest well.”
Xiao hangs up.
Guizhong realizes she’d been eavesdropping, and knocks on the door.
“It’s open,” Xiao says.
He’s sitting back against a mountain of pillows pressed into the headboard, wrapped in blankets with his laptop propped against his knees. He takes barely half a glance at the bottles in her hand and groans.
“I really don’t think that stuff is helping,” he says.
She’d chalk it up to teenagers being stubborn, but of the twice-daily times he’s taken these antibiotics over the past three days since being home, four of those times they’ve made him sick. She wishes there were another way.
“You know what the hospital said, love,” she says sympathetically as she sits beside him. “It’s an unfortunate but not unusual side effect, and it doesn’t mean it isn’t helping. It’s only for another week.”
Xiao sighs, but accepts the dose from her, guzzling the pill down with water. “Venti wants to bring soup over for dinner,” he says.
“Ah, yes, I overheard. I don’t have anything planned for tonight if he’s truly so dead-set on cooking for us.”
“He’s dead-set about everything,” Xiao says. “He’s…”
“A keeper?”
“Ridiculous. But that, too.”
And so Venti brings dinner. Xiao tried to be awake for it, but his body is only working against him trying to heal him, and he’s been sleeping so roughly this past while that she can’t bear to wake him up when she finds him curled up in the center of his bed in his room. Venti is understanding—happy, even, to hear that Xiao’s resting.
“He sounded exhausted over the phone,” Venti says, stepping back out of the threshold after handing the pot of soup over to Zhongli. “But, I made him promise not to try shouldering everything on his own, so if he tries to do that ‘Xiao’ thing where he’s needlessly stubborn and clams up about needing help, hold him to it! I’m the enemy here.”
He puts his hands on his hips and everything with an accomplished grin to top it off. Guizhong can understand why Xiao loves him.
“Well, thank you so much for dinner,” Guizhong says. “We’ll have to have you over sometime for a meal once Xiao’s recovered.”
“Oh! I’d love to, that’d be great! You guys are awesome people, I’m glad Xiao has you.”
“We’re glad he has you, too,” Zhongli says. “Thank you for encouraging him to rest.”
After a bit of closing small-talk, they see him off, waving until he’s out of sight. Guizhong may not have gotten the chance to know Venti yet (and she’s determined to change that soon), but his heart is draped over his sleeves and alight in his smile. She has no quarrel with him dating their boy.
Zhongli settles the pot of soup over a folded hand towel in the center of the dining table. “Is Xiao still asleep?”
“He was before Venti arrived, but I’ll check again.”
“We can always reheat it for him later if so.”
She nods.
Xiao is asleep when she checks on him, expectedly and just as well. She and Zhongli eat together and he washes their measly dishes while she finds an open place in the fridge to store the leftovers. Venti really set them up.
When Xiao does stir, perhaps an hour or so later, he’s nauseous and has no appetite. He’s also frustrated that he slept through Venti’s visit, enough that Guizhong doesn’t push the issue of food and leaves him to settle his thoughts.
Zhongli talks to him later, though, and convinces him to sip water and strained broth. She doesn’t know how Zhongli managed to convince him, but she’s grateful if a little envious.
The next couple of days come and go with little incident. Xiao diligently keeps up with his antibiotics, and by day five of taking them the nausea is less intense and his usual, mild temperament reappears to replace the empty, listless or frustratedly angry one. His appetite doesn’t resurface as quickly, though; the doctors at the hospital said it was normal, but that doesn’t change his need for sustenance, and she won’t have him losing any more weight to this illness. He’s reasonable enough about it, trying whatever she offers even if he never finishes it all. He’s definitely got the stubbornness of their family; might as well have inherited it from them.
His lungs whistle more than she likes, but that’s apparently normal, too.
His recovery overall goes without substantial hitches. Zhongli helps him keep up his hygiene and Guizhong takes care to clean his sheets and bedding often, even if his fever’s gone. He asks little of them.
Then, in the middle of the night on day seven since the hospital let them go, she stirs half instinctually, half because something had woken her. It must have woken Zhongli, too, because he also stirs. Xiao is standing in the doorway clutching the frame for support. His other hand grabs at his chest.
“Xiao?” Zhongli murmurs. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t breathe,” Xiao gasps.
Guizhong leaps out of bed with Zhongli. She’d been moving before him but he reaches Xiao first, grasping his forearms to hold him still. Xiao wheezes, gasping like he’s breathing through a straw.
They settle Xiao between them in bed with tea and his inhaler, and Guizhong rubs his back as he tries to inhale the steam. He’s trembling like reeds in a storm, muscles tight and chest rising and falling thinly.
“Breathe, sweetheart,” Guizhong whispers. He tries to take a deeper breath, but can’t, and she massages the nape of his neck. “Shhh, you’re okay.”
She meets the worried eyes of her husband over Xiao’s head.
“Sorry,” Xiao wheezes, sounding throttled. “S-S’horry—“
“Breathe,” Zhongli interrupts with urgency, kneading Xiao’s shoulders. “It’s alright, you did the right thing in coming to us. Now breathe.”
“We have you,” Guizhong promises. “You’re going to be okay.”
He wheezes, taking his breath in thin, focused inhales while they sit with him, ready to get the car if he needs a hospital again. Guizhong rubs his back absentmindedly and Zhongli keeps his hand over Xiao’s around the mug, steadying him. Xiao doesn’t cough, but his breaths are still weak and noisy, like he’s breathing through a coffee stirrer. The steam from the tea seems to help; the inhaler, too. His breaths don’t get much deeper, but deep enough to keep him home and not in a hospital.
“Sorry,” Xiao finally says when he has enough air to speak. “I… sorry, it would’ve been fine if I didn’t wake you guys up—”
“You can always wake us up,” Zhongli says. “Would you like to stay here with us tonight just in case?”
“Uhm.” Xiao picks at his sleeves. “I… don’t know if I’ll be able to sleep again, I was just gonna lay on the couch and watch stuff on my laptop.”
“Would you like company?” Guizhong asks. “If you need space, that’s perfectly understandable, but I’d sit with you if you didn’t feel like being alone.”
“But you were asleep,” Xiao says. “I wouldn’t—” He stops to breathe some more, wheezing, and Guizhong’s hand runs back and forth across his shoulder blades. “I wouldn’t want you to have to stay awake,” Xiao finishes, “just for me.”
“I have a book I’d be happy to keep reading,” Guizhong says. She reaches over with her free hand to jab her husband’s shoulder. “Ask Zhongli, he was prying it out of my hands last night trying to get me to bed.”
Zhongli sighs, over-exaggerated and forlorn. “My efforts to get you to bed at a decent hour continue to thrive in vain.”
Xiao huffs, then wheezes, clutching his chest. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“That was hardly funny.”
“Well, look at that,” Guizhong says, smiling, “suppose I have to keep you company now, Xiao, so I can finish my book.”
“Guess so,” Xiao says. He knocks his head against her shoulder, a little awkward. “Thank you.”
She can’t imagine the haunting terror of waking up alone and unable to breathe. She’s happy to keep him company.
“I’ll be there in a moment,” Zhongli tells her, standing when she helps Xiao to his feet. He takes the mug of remaining tea from the bedside table. “There’s… something I’d like to check.”
He has a distant yet determined glint in his eyes, one she knows means he’s following a hunch. She nods and guides Xiao into the living room.
Xiao falls asleep almost right away. He’d gotten his laptop, plugged in his headphones, and just started a History of Music documentary. Guizhong is three digital pages into her kindle when she realizes he nodded off, curled into the arm of the couch with the blanket around his shoulders and the documentary still playing. She smiles, relieved, and returns to her book.
A chapter and a half later, Zhongli reappears with three mugs of tea held precariously in one hand (oh, she wishes he wouldn’t), and his laptop balanced on the opposite arm. Before she can so much as open her mouth, he says, “Xiao has asthma.”
She stops. “What?”
He holds the three-mug-one-hand abomination out to her, and she manages to pry two of the mugs free, one for herself and setting Xiao’s on the coffee table for another time. Zhongli takes a seat at her side, careful not to shake the couch, and shows her his laptop.
“His medical history,” he says. “I knew the agency wasn’t being transparent with us. I should have checked sooner.”
They were given access to Xiao’s medical records, but upfront told he had no medical conditions or known allergens. His only medical history was the trouble he landed himself in street fighting, but he’d never needed a hospital for it. (Well. “Needed” is relative; either way, he wasn’t taken to any.)
“I did a bit of digging,” Zhongli says, “and it’s spread out across several facilities and pediatricians, but he was diagnosed with asthma on three separate accounts by three separate doctors.”
“Asthma?” That could explain why the pneumonia progressed as rapidly as it did. “Why were we never told he has asthma?”
“It’s a very common condition,” Zhongli says, “maybe because he’d never been hospitalized for it they didn’t think it was important information.”
“They told us he didn’t have any medical conditions.”
“Yes.” His voice is lifted, eyes like stone. “They did tell us that.”
Xiao, sleeping on the couch with his earbuds and his documentary and his whistling breaths, only just recovering from rapid onset pneumonia and a frenzied hospitalization… he had to be given oxygen, the CT scan, the blood work, the chest X-ray, the EKG… if they'd known he was asthmatic, would that have changed anything? They would’ve taken him in sooner, no doubt, the moment they realized he was sick—would that have changed…?
She stops herself there. They know now. They should have been told sooner, but they know now. Still, she reaches for Zhongli’s hand, feeling his earned and well validated wrath, and with her other hand she tucks Xiao’s hair behind his ear.
“He’s alright,” Guizhong tells Zhongli, stroking his knuckles with her thumb. “We have him. They don’t get to hurt him anymore.”
Zhongli sucks in a deep breath. “They warned us about him,” he says. “All that time leading up to signing the last set of paperwork, every second of it, they told us he was all of these terrible things, that we shouldn’t take him, that he didn’t— deserve a, a family, or to be safe and taken care of—and I understand that Xiao brought his reputation upon himself, but I’ve always wondered by what margin they overblew it, how little they really cared—”
“We have him.” The acid in her voice surprises her, but she trusts Zhongli to know it isn’t directed at him. “We have him,” she repeats, an oath, clutching Zhongli’s hand. “He’s going to be okay.”
Zhongli takes a deep breath. “I know.” He holds it, closing his eyes, and eventually exhales completely and takes her hand. “I know.”
Guizhong stirs, finding the living room still shrouded in darkness, with even the light of Xiao’s laptop no more. Someone settled a blanket around her shoulders (Zhongli, most likely, he’s always been unnecessary like that). She blinks a bit, clearing her vision. Their three mugs of tea rest hardly touched on the coffee table; Xiao’s laptop went into sleep mode, his earbuds draped across the keyboard. She feels Zhongli’s steady breathing against her temple, his head leaned into her hair. One of his hands is still loosely coiled around hers, lax with sleep, his hair unbraided.
And at her other side is… Xiao, his knees digging into her ribs, head resting half against his own legs and half against her side, arms smushed between it all. It doesn’t look like a comfortable angle, but he’s such a light sleeper and he’s been sleeping so poorly, she can’t bear to disturb him.
He must have… moved here on his own? She certainly didn’t and Zhongli wouldn’t have. He really… chose to draw himself close to them, whether in his sleep or otherwise.
Carefully, she drapes her arm over his side, pulling him in and leaning into her husband, listening to both of them breathe until her breathing naturally follows along. Warm, safe, home, together, what more could she possibly dream of?