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He can’t remember when he had fallen asleep, but Moze comes to with an aching chest and dry lungs. He moves to sit up, bleary eyes scanning the outline of his room, but Jiaoqiu’s hands are there to stop him, maneuvering him by the shoulders to lie back again.
“Take a second,” Jiaoqiu instructs, and Moze grunts in lieu of any actual language escaping him. There’s a foldable table set up beside him, near the end of Moze’s bed, donned with a small variety of delicious-looking food. If his body didn’t feel like it was on fire, Moze might have been more eager to taste them. Jiaoqiu reaches over and plucks a bowl from the table, then nods toward him. “Careful, move slow, okay?”
Another grunt, and Moze does as he’s told. His arms feel weaker than usual, but he still manages to push himself up and press his spine back against the head of the bed. His head lolls toward Jiaoqiu, cheek resting in a warm circle of flesh against his own shoulder. An involuntary sigh pushes out of his chest, shaky and parched.
“Here,” Jiaoqiu offers a spoonful of what looks like soup, though Moze can’t really discern what kind, “it’s hot.”
Moze’s gaze flicks between the silver spoon in Jiaoqiu’s hand and his tense expression; his face is undisturbed, would look normal to anyone who couldn’t tell any better, but the edges are sharp and there’s an unnatural tightness to his features. Moze pushes his chin forward and wraps his lips around the spoonful of soup, relishing in the blossom of warmth that seeps into his mouth and spills down his throat.
He chews around a chunk of something hot and soft, and it tastes sort of like potatoes. Jiaoqiu’s fox ear twitches as he watches Moze intently, almost dissecting him internally.
“I should apologize for the inconvenience,” is the first thing Moze says after swallowing. His throat scratches around the words and it feels rough to get his voice out, but he needs to say it. “And the concern. I know there are better things for you to be doing than nursing me at my bedside.”
“Nonsense,” Jiaoqiu chides. “You’re my treasured partner, just as important as any other duty I’m sworn to.” He pauses, stirs the soup in his hands. “More, I’d say.”
A tightness comes about in Moze’s chest, and he turns his head and coughs into the crease of his elbow to quell it. Jiaoqiu is holding another spoonful up when he looks back, and this time Moze takes the utensil from him to feed himself; he still doesn’t know what kind it is—the abundance of flavors overwhelms him—but it’s good. There have only been a select few times where medicinal cuisine has been the proper treatment for his ailments, but Moze knows firsthand just how skilled Jiaoqiu is at his craft; he can soothe a person’s soul, not just their physical body.
“It’s good,” Moze says, an echo of his inner voice. The burn of hot liquid, not quite spicy but not flat, either, against his throat is palliative. He finishes off the last few sips at the bottom of the bowl and then gently hands it back to Jiaoqiu with a quiet, “Thank you.”
A small smile stretches across Jiaoqiu’s lips as he takes the bowl from Moze and sets it aside. “No need to thank me,” he says, and picks up another dish—something smaller, and it smells strong of honey. Moze squints and recognizes it as some kind of children’s dessert, cake and chocolate drizzled in honey glaze. It doesn’t look like anything remotely medical.
Jiaoqiu offers it to him, and Moze takes the miniature plate into his hands, examines the dessert for a moment longer, then stabs it and pops it into his mouth whole. The face Jiaoqiu makes is telling of his shock and dissatisfaction with Moze’s eating habits, but he says nothing beyond the sigh that escapes him.
It’s so sweet that it’s almost repulsive, and Moze fights off a strange expression while he chews and swallows it down. The honey leaves a satisfying aftertaste in his mouth, and only then does he taste the medicinal hints mixed within the dish.
“What’s it for?” He asks.
Jiaoqiu stifles quiet laughter behind the back of his hand. “Normally someone would ask that before scarfing it down,” he teases lightly. “It’s just a little something that’ll help with keeping your energy up once you start to recover. Not immediate, but it’s long-lasting and proven to be highly effective. You should be back in top shape by the time your body naturally fights off the sickness.”
Moze nods his head languidly, a short grunt of acknowledgment following the motion. He’s not exactly tired, but there’s a sleepiness still soaked into the centers of his bones, being carefully coaxed out by the medicine Jiaoqiu had given him. His head is heavy, but he already feels a feather-like sensation building up inside his lungs.
“I should let you get some more rest,” Jiaoqiu resolves in a half-murmur, patting the palms of his hands against his thighs. He moves to rise from the stool he’d pulled up beside Moze’s bed, but a shaky hand darts over and latches onto his wrist.
“Don’t,” Moze says, and his face seems to convey an impulsive nature surrounding the word. He looks mildly flustered, unsure of why he would say or do such a thing in the first place. Hesitantly, his hand removes itself from Jiaoqiu and settles back in the crevice of the duvet pulled atop him. “I—I’m sorry, I don’t know why…I did that,” he admits, just barely under his breath, after a beat.
“Or I could stay.” Jiaoqiu settles himself back onto the stool, legs crossed at the ankles. Moze thinks he might burst out into laughter at any moment, but it never comes to pass; his expression is soft and caring and Moze can’t recall the last time he’s felt so ripped-open while being looked at.
He reaches out for Moze’s hand slowly, as if afraid of startling him, and oh so carefully laces their fingers together. A small lump begins to form in the bottom of Moze’s throat. He lets his head fall to the side, coughs into the hot skin of his shoulder.
“Is this okay?” asks Jiaoqiu.
“It’s fine,” Moze manages. His voice is garbled, muffled against paleness.
Jiaoqiu frowns, squeezes his fingers around Moze’s. It’s warm, warm, warm, from his fingertips to the top of his head and back again. “What is this? At least look at me,” he criticizes. “Am I that ugly?”
With a groan, Moze pushes himself backward, sliding down against the pillows in his bed. He turns onto his side, makes sure not to let go of Jiaoqiu’s hand. “Hardly,” he says, and it’s hard to look him in the eye when he says it, but Moze does his best. He feels a sort of sun-bright satisfaction flow through his veins when Jiaoqiu’s ears twitch in that familiar sort of way—Moze’s learned what it means, now, after all this time: embarrassment. Perhaps a bit of disbelief intermingled. “Better?”
Jiaoqiu admits, “It’s a little awkward now,” and tilts his head toward their locked hands in gesture. Moze reluctantly loosens his grip and allows for the foxian to adjust, grasp over his other hand with ease instead. “There,” he says, “better.”
They stay like that for a moment, letting the silence blanket them and swirl in place; Moze listens to his heartbeat in his ears and the birds that chirp outside the cracked window near the opposite end of his room. Jiaoqiu’s thumb sways a slow rhythm back and forth across the back of his hand.
Ever so passively, Moze’s eyelids shut and his head presses further back into the plush of his pillowcase. He swallows hard around the dryness in his esophagus.
“You,” he starts, and then clams up when his voice betrays him. Moze steels himself, eyebrows pinched together, fingers trembling around Jiaoqiu’s grasp. “You feel like home to me.”
A second passes, then two, and then three. Moze feels bile rising inside of him for every torturous moment that passes without so much as an acknowledgement on Jiaoqiu’s part, but then a low chuckle breaks the heavy tension floating around him.
“Is that so?” Jiaoqiu presses his free hand forward, brushing aside the slightly sweat-slick, silver bangs stuck flack against Moze’s forehead. The touch is fleeting, minutely ticklish. Moze shivers beneath it. “I’m inclined to agree, then. I find myself…quite at ease around you, Moze.” A pause, a short breath, then, “When you’re not falling apart at the seams, that is.”
A laugh pushes its way out of Moze’s chest, demanding and impatient. It comes out a half-cough. “I won’t let you see me like this again,” he says, and it sounds like a promise, though Jiaoqiu would never ask him to make such a promise and Moze isn’t one to make them in the first place.
There’s the pressure of another squeeze around his hand, and Jiaoqiu’s chest rises and falls around a heavy sigh. “You will,” he insists with a twinge of melancholy, “but I’ll be right here, just the same. Sickness, injury, even death—I’ll cure you from all of it.”
Moze hums, pulls Jiaoqiu’s hand up and rests it between the burning skin of his cheek and the softness of his pillow. A boiling limpness overtakes him, and Moze vaguely recognizes it as sleep.
Behind the darkness of his eyelids, he mumbles, “I look forward to that future, then, Jiaoqiu.”