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The room was dim. A single crack in the heavy curtains let in a slender blade of moonlight through and into the room.
All was still...until the bed shifted.
Dottore's eyes opened. He hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d fallen asleep. He rarely did. Sleep came to him quickly, he also wasn't a deep sleeper, always on guard, always easy to wake up. Even in his resting hours Zandik’s instincts were too finely tuned to ignore the creak of weight lifting beside him, the rustle of sheets, the uneven hitch of breath.
He didn’t move immediately. He listened.
The sound came again, soft at first, then rougher. A cough. Muffled, but insistent. Followed by the scrape of fingers against the nightstand, searching, blindly, for glasses.
Dottore sat up, quietly, the sheets slipping from his bare shoulder.
"...What’s wrong?" His voice was low, shaped by sleep. He wasn't alarmed, not yet.
Baizhu almost always had these coughing fits, there was usually never no reason as to why they happened, sometimes it was just out of the blue.
Zandik leaned forward, one arm bracing behind Baizhu, the other already beginning to reach for the glass of water left nearby, and to press the back of his hand to the mans forehead.
Baizhu didn’t answer at first. He took a breath in, too shallow. His back curved slightly where he sat on the edge of the mattress, shoulders hunched. The cough rattled again through his chest, this time sharper.
"Tch." Dottore clicked his tongue, displeased. Not at him. At the sound. At the implication.
"You didn’t say anything earlier."
Baizhu exhaled, and though he meant to speak, it caught again in his throat. He turned his head toward Dottore, one hand finally landing on the metal arms of his glasses. Even in the low light, the frames glinted as he slid them on, trying to compose himself.
"It wasn’t this bad earlier" he said, voice hoarse. "It only started once I laid down."
Dottore’s gaze narrowed faintly.
"You’re congested" he stated, perhaps it was too humid? Or maybe just another chronic issue flaring inside of him again.
He shifted to kneel on the bed behind Baizhu, fingers already moving to push back the thick fall of green hair at his nape, brushing it aside to feel the warmth of his skin. "Your breathing’s shallow. Irritation in the upper chest. You have a fever."
"It’s barely noticeable—"
A fever" Dottore repeated, flatly.
Baizhu's expression tightened, not from discomfort, but from that quiet, ever-persistent resistance to being the object of worry. He always acted composed and that he was fine but in some moments that broke and those who cared to see, saw through his acts.
Even now, sick and caught between coughing fits, he was trying to downplay it.
Zandik stood from the bed and crossed to the cabinet tucked beneath one of the shelves.
He hated unknowns. Especially when they concerned Baizhu.
When he returned to the bed, Baizhu was still seated, though he’d slouched slightly, one hand braced on his knee.
"No injections" he said, preemptively, eyeing the syringe.
Dottore made a soft noise, almost a sigh. "What if I told you it was just an antihistamine?"
"I’d say you’re lying."
"Correct" Dottore said as he set it aside....for now. Instead he pressed a capsule into Baizhu's palm. "Should help with the cough" It definitely wasn't just a basic fever, cold or a mild bronchitis, at least not in Baizhu’s case, it never was that simple.
Once he took it and the glass was set down again, Dottore eased him back toward the pillows with a surprisingly gentle hand behind his shoulder.
"You should have said something earlier" he murmured as he pulled the blankets up again. "Ignoring symptoms never works in your favor. You forget who you’re with."
"I didn’t want to wake you" Baizhu said, closing his eyes as Dottore took off his glasses.
Dottore gave him a long look. "You couldn’t, I always wake up when you move."
Baizhu shifted beneath the covers, finally allowing himself to lean toward the warmth of the other man, head resting against his shoulder as Dottore’s arm wrapped around him.
Dottore fingertips brushed over Baizhu’s wrist where he could feel the pulse.
Baizhu let out a breath. The tension in his shoulders had begun to loosen.
"I'm the doctor yet, here I am treated like a patient."
"Doctors need rest too, especially the ones who think they can shoulder everything on their own."
As the night stretched.
Baizhu was still awake. Barely.
His eyes were half-lidded breath hot as it stuttered with coughing. His limbs ached, and everything felt heavy, the blankets, the air, his own body.
He didn’t speak, his lips were dry. He’d kicked off the covers twice already, then curled back beneath them with a shiver. His back remained to Dottore, but every few seconds, he’d cough, that deep, chesty kind that scraped the ribs on its way up and refused to go quietly. He had a tissue at hand, just in case he had to spit out the build-up or in case there was blood.
Eventually, he felt the mattress dip again.
"Still awake" came Dottore’s voice, not a question. It was low, not unkind, but observational.
"Indeed" Baizhu said. He cleared his throat after–a mistake. It sent another cough through him.
Dottore reached across the short space between them. The back of his fingers brushed against Baizhu’s cheek first, then his neck, lingering briefly.
"You’re burning up, worse than earlier."
Baizhu didn’t argue. He couldn’t. He just let his eyes drift shut, but sleep wouldn’t come. His heartbeat too fast in his chest, his skin prickled with heat, and his thoughts were a mess. Even laying still was exhausting.
"I took what you gave me" he muttered after a while, voice rough. "It didn’t help."
Dottore sighed, he kinda figured that would be the case.
"That should have suppressed the fever and opened your airways. For it to do neither…" He trailed off. Not pleased.
He rose, only to return with a cool cloth and a second set of capsules, stronger this time. As he sat on the edge of the bed again, he placed a hand on Baizhu’s forehead.
Baizhu flinched a little at the sudden chill of the cloth Dottore began pressing along his brow and temple. It was unexpected.
"You’re unpleasant when you hide symptoms." Zandik said simply.
That earned a small a smile. But even that faded quickly as another cough overtook him. He curled a little in place, fatigued and embarrassed all at once.
"...I can’t sleep" he admitted, "Everything aches. I’m hot, then cold, and I can’t breathe, the usual, no need to mention it."
Zanim placed the cool cloth over Baizhu’s eyes for a moment, then eased his head gently to the side.
"No need to mention it?" He repeated, almost upset by that sentiment.
"You were sleeping. I didn’t want to wake you up for nothing–"
"I don’t sleep, not the way you do. And certainly not deeply enough to ignore that.c He gestured to the rasp in Baizhu’s voice, the heat of his skin and the occasional sniffle
"Just hand me a sleeping pill" Baizhu said as he held his palm out.
"And to watch you almost seize and choke on your sleep like the last time?"
That was one of the reasons Baizhu wasn't allowed sleeping meds while his symptoms were flaring up. He'd be knocked out and unable to wake up.
"Try again, okay? Close your eyes and try" Dottore said as he moved to lay down again, drawing Baizhu against him carefully. His chest was easy for Baizhu to lean into, his skin cooler by comparison. A hand slipped to the back of Baizhu’s neck, guiding his head to rest just beneath his chin, cradling him close.
Baizhu didn’t protest. He was too tired to, and it was comforting, the closeness. The feeling of Dottore’s body next to his, the faint beat of his heart. Baizhu's breath hitched.
"You’ll be fine" Dottore murmured against his hair. Trying to soothe him.
The night had returned to silence once more.
Baizhu had finally begun to drift into sleep, lulled by the low, constant rhythm of Dottore’s breathing beside him and the steady pressure of his hand over his sternum.
But mere half an hour later, that peace shattered once more.
It happened in an instant. One moment, the bed was still. The next, Baizhu jerked upright with a sudden gasp, coughing violently into the crook of his arm, his breath catching halfway through. He couldn’t get air in. He couldn’t.
His hand flew to his throat as though trying to wrench it open, closed eyes. The wheezing was sharp, ragged, as if his lungs were refusing to expand. The coughs weren’t productive anymore, just dry spasms of panic and need.
He couldn’t breathe.
He couldn’t breathe.
Dottore’s eyes snapped open before the second wheeze left Baizhu’s mouth.
He sat up without a word, all remnants of sleep gone from his expression. There was no panic on his face, just focus, quick and immediate.
"Baizhu, sit up." He said simply, it didn't mean much but he needed to make sure the other was responsive.
Baizhu didn’t, couldn’t. He was too busy choking on a breath he couldn’t catch, chest heaving as he hunched forward, one trembling hand gripping the edge of the blanket, the other still pressed to his throat.
His ears buzzing.
Dottore was already moving. The bedside drawer opened with a click and he pulled out a sealed case, flipping it open without hesitation. Inside, as always, was an emergency inhaler. He grabbed it, uncapped it in a motion too quick to be brushed off as uncaring, the cap clattered somehwere on the floor but he didn’t care. He slid onto the bed beside Baizhu.
"Slow" he said. "You’re panicking. You need to stop. Now."
He caught Baizhu’s chin firmly and brought the inhaler to his lips.
"Exhale. All the way out."
It was almost a joke. Baizhu's breath came in shuddering gasps. But he tried, and that was enough.
"Now, in. Breathe."
He pressed the inhaler.
The hiss of the medication was swallowed by the awful wheeze that followed, Dottore's other hand pressed onto the back of Baizhu’s head so he wouldn't pull away from the medicine on accident. It had happened before. He felt terrible having to force him to take it like that but it was either that or watching him turn the panic into a full-blown seizure.
Baizhu inhaled, eyes squeezed tight, his fingers clenching around Dottore’s wrist in an attempt to pry it off. His head jerked back but the hand behind stopped him.
His pulse was erratic, his body trembling from the effort of staying upright. He continously tried to jerk away but Dottore forced him from both the back and the front to stay.
Another dose. Another breath. Again.
And slowly the resistance in his chest began to loosen and he grew too tired to fight against it. He just inhaled, reaching over to grasp the back of the inhaler over Dottore’s hand to ground himself.
Not entirely. Not comfortably. But the air began to move. In and out. In and out.
Dottore stayed exactly where he was until he let go when Baizhu seemed stable enough.
"Triggered by the fever."
"I—" Baizhu gasped, still rasping. "I know."
His voice was thin and pained. His forehead shone with sweat. There was a kind of quiet shame in the way he sat there, clutching the inhaler, chest heaving.
"It hasn’t—done this in years…"
"I remember the last time" Dottore said while crossing his arms. "You fainted after saying it was 'nothing serious'."
"It wasn’t!"
"You almost died"
Baizhu didn’t respond. His head was bowed slightly, his long hair falling into his face, hiding the flicker of embarrassment in his eyes. He was trying to catch his breath, trying to pretend he wasn’t still rattled to his bones, even as his chest gave the occasional dry cough.
Dottore leaned forward, pressing the back of his fingers against Baizhu’s neck again.
"Lie back" he said.
Baizhu shook his head, tired, glassy-eyed, but lucid now. "I can’t, I don’t want to fall asleep again in case—"
"You won’t be alone" Dottore said, interrupting. "So lie down."
And this time, Baizhu did.
He allowed Dottore to ease him back against the pillows, still propped up slightly to keep his lungs unburdened.
"I’ll stay awake" Dottore said, brushing a damp strand of hair back from the mans forehead. "You’re still unstable. I'll be here."
Baizhu closed his eyes, jaw tightening. His fingers sought Dottore’s hand blindly, a rare admission of vulnerability.
"You always knew it was worse than I let on."
"I always know" Dottore corrected, grasping his hand firmly in return, he gently rubbed it with his thumb. "Just rest"
And he didn’t let go. Not for the rest of the night. Not even once.