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Chapter Text

They say all things big and small return to roost in the end. The river returns to the ocean, and flesh returns to bone, dust unto dust. Eternal. Shen Gongbao knows this. He has learned this. He has taught this. But a streak of madness—a rush of shameful, regretful envy—once made him forget this. Three years in the Eastern Sea once made him forget this.

Who I am, what I am, what I’ve done, none of it shall matter once Ao Bing ascends. He’s repeated that over the years, the days and hours.

But the price runs steep.

He does not know whether his disciple lives or dies. What does it matter? You left him to die so many times already.

He failed to save Chentang Pass. What does it matter? You’ve called for their deaths so many times before.

He does not know what became of Li Jing and General Yin. What does it matter? Compared to what you stole from their precious son? What does it matter, if Li Jing is a good man? You’ve hurt many good men.

He does not know if there is anything left of Xiaobao’s body. What does it matter? He died because of you. You couldn’t lie forever. You couldn’t pretend he was ever any different from those demons you once hunted and killed. You can’t pretend you were ever any better than another pill in Wuliang’s mouth. You can’t pretend you were ever worth anything more than the scum on his shoe.

He does not know if anything remains of the demons back home. What does it matter? You knew this day would come, you’ve always known. But you’ve always been a coward too.

He does not know if Nezha, or his fool of a Master, lives. And what does it matter? What right have you to think of them, those you’ve hurt the most? You’ve lied and stolen and murdered aplenty. You are a rotten, selfish, dirty creature. There is no force on heaven and Earth that will ever absolve you of your sins.

He does not know if Ao Guang has escaped the sea. But you will never be free. So what does it matter?

All things come home to roost. And Shen Gongbao has returned to Yuxu Palace. The Chan Sect is honest with him this time. There are no more false promises, no more hands stretching towards him and promising a better fate. He is not Yuanshi Tianzun’s pupil. He is not the captain of any heavenly troop. He is not a triumphant immortal.

All that remains is a disgraced demon bound in bloodied thorns.

His father stays out of reach, alive by a thread. Blissfully unconscious, the slightest of saving graces. Wuliang’s disciples keep him alive with a pinch of rice each day and a whiff of spirit each night. It is the only way Shen Gongbao can count the hours and days.

There is no light in the dungeon under Yuxu, only the red glow of fire beneath his feet and the never-changing rim of white above his head. It is not enough to tell the passage of time. So instead, he measures by the spoonfuls of rice they give his father and the sensation of his own skin.

The thorns biting his flesh no longer feel so sharp. The rest of his wounds are starting to fester, but they no longer ache. The merciless snag of broken ribs has dulled to a pulsating throb, and the flesh ripped asunder by steel claws has numbed with cold. The cold has always bothered him more than the heat. 

Even so, he prefers the company of pain over that of the voice in his head. But he thinks he is dying, because he is starting to hurt less, starting to not hurt at all, and yet the voice grows bolder, coughing out all the things he had wanted to but never had the courage to say. If not for his father—if not for the slim chance of saving his father—he would gladly welcome death now, even if it means returning to the mortal plane as a bug missing wings.

It would not be so bad, if you were both to die now. You would be free, and your father would stay untouched by your sins. He can die without ever knowing the truth about his precious celestials, without seeing his dreams crushed. Without seeing you, his beloved son, for the monster you are. He would never need to know about Xiaobao’s death. If you both die, you can take these things to the grave and beyond.

It is the fever speaking, he knows. Some terrible part of him almost agrees. But death does not come easily. Nothing ever does for him.

A warm hand cups his cheek. “Master Shen, are you awake?”

Instinctively, he pulls away—or perhaps he leans toward it first. 

“Why do you struggle?” the voice asks, “it’s not worth it, when you’re like this.”

He knows what “like this” means. He has known since he first awoke in this freezing place, feeling brittle in ways he knew had nothing to do with his torn flesh. Nearly one thousand years of cultivation cut away, leaving behind a mortal shell. He can hardly sense it now; but before, it drove him mad, sensing all that strength, all that which made him him, dangling just that much farther away.

“There’s no shame in accepting Xianweng’s terms.” Something cold presses flat against his jaw, a blade of jade.

He musters enough strength to summon a glare. There is a blur of gold and white in front of him. Too many days, perhaps weeks, of mortal hunger have left his gaze unfocused. But he can tell, from the voice and the way it stands, that this man is not Lutong. Certainly not Wuliang or Hetong. 

“Does Wuliang know… know you’re here?” Shen Gongbao rasps, his words closer to a growl than anything human. He’s dropped the honorific. Wuliang is not his brother, no amount of “shixiongs” and “shidis” will change that.

The blade nips at his collar, casually peeling his muddy robe apart. 

“But I think I’d prefer to die too,” the new disciple says, “if I was you. They all think you destroyed Chentang Pass. Third Prince Nezha. Your disciple Ao Bing. That old dragon. Take your pick, Master Shen. You’re a murderer, perhaps worse. Better they think you’re dead, no?”

Shen Gongbao winces, the blade purposely dipping into skin. Blood rolls out, warm and itchy.

“There’s no one to vouch for you. Lord and Lady Li are dead.”

His mouth is dry. “I don’t believe you.”

The blade leaves another cut, deep. Then it pulls away. “Suit yourself. You’ll be lucky if Nezha just kills you once you step out of here. If I was him, I’d poke out your eyes first and then pluck away your limbs one by one.”

Lord and Lady Li are dead. He thinks it is a lie. But he doesn’t know for sure. It still feels like a piece of coal has burned a hole in his stomach. 

The disciple scratches off the bits of black robe stuck to the blade. He stares at the bare chest in front, the hollow of the prisoner’s stomach, and the sharp line of misshapen ribs. 

“What about this, Master Shen?” His tongue curls over “Master Shen” like it is an insult, a sneer in each syllable. “I’ll let you and your father go, if you do one thing for me.”

He dips his blade in a pot by his side, what Shen Gongbao recognizes as one of Hetong’s bowls. The dagger comes out misted with smoke.

Shen Gongbao wants to say, Like hell you will. But when his lips part, they say, “What?”

The disciple smiles, his teeth a flash of perfect pearls. 

“Just repeat a tongue twister with me. It should be easy, right?”

Shen Gongbao freezes, the blood suddenly slowing in his veins.

“Repeat after me, Master Shen-” The disciple comes closer, Shen Gongbao’s chest feeling the heat of his blade, “Eight hundred spearmen rush to the northern slope. Artillery soldiers run side by side to the north. The artillery soldiers fear bumping into the spearmen. The spearmen fear bumping into the artillerymen’s cannon.”

bā bǎi biāo bīng bèn běi pō, pào bīng bìng pái běi bian pǎo, pào bīng pà bǎ biāo bīng pèng, biāo bīng pà pèng pào bīng pào

His cheeks are hot, a curse dying in his throat. “Eight hundred spe- spearmen-”

He screams, the blade searing his rib. He smells flesh burn.

“You have to repeat it perfectly, Master Shen. Don’t st… stutter. Even children can do this.”

The blade burns him again. He holds down the cry this time, sweat breaking out. These childish insults are nothing, he thinks. Once upon a time, the other disciples had done the same to him before, pulled at his leopard ears and demanded he show his tail. This is nothing but a bored man’s idea of a joke.

“Eight hundred spearmen rush to…” the word won’t come out, sticking to his throat like a sharp fish bone. “To- the- the northern slope.” AH!

The blade burns him again, leaving a print of black and red below his breastbone. 

“You can do better than that, Master Shen. You’re not an animal.”

“Eight hundred spearmen— rush to the northern slope.” He gasps it out, the words slurring. Then the next phrase glues him back down: “Artillery soldiers run…side… side- by side to-”

The smoke trails across his chest, charring skin until it blisters and bleeds.

“From the beginning, Master Shen.”

He hears someone laugh. There are more of them. 

“Eight hundred spearmen rush to the northern s- slope.” 

He chokes on the next word, a new cry ripping out of his throat. The blade has moved again, burning him down to the bone. 

“Eight hundred spearmen rush to the northern slope! Arti- artillery–” The smoke reaches his eyes. The blade reaches his back.

“Eight hundred spearmen rush- rush to the northern slope-” It burns.

“Eight hundred spear- spearmen-” He screams.

“Artillery soldiers run- run side by-” It burns.

“Artillery soldiers run… run-” It burns.

It burns.

It burns.

His throat is too raw to say more by the time they tip the rest of Hetong’s pot over his backside. He is not sure if he still looks human by the time they finish, that perhaps he can no longer keep this appearance from breaking. But he knows they would burn the fur off his tail if it showed. 

He never makes it past the twister. He cannot. They do not let his father go. 

That disciple comes back again the following day, his voice still cool and sneering. He replaces the blade with a whip. The day after that, he replaces it with his fist. Then Shen Gongbao stops paying attention.

Until, after however many days he stopped counting, he hears the smirking disciple scream, a string of weepy stuttering, “Please- please- no-”s leaving his throat. Before distinct claws of steel crush his skull. 

The disciple falls dead at Ao Guang’s feet. 

Chapter Text

This plan is stupid, Ao Guang thinks. Then he takes that thought back and instead thinks, This plan is very stupid. The truth is, Ao Guang is not much of a thinker. He tends to act first, consequences be damned, and then lament the fact afterward. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned there, but Ao Guang knows himself to be stubborn too on top of that. He’s always left the scheming to Shen Gongbao. He’s always left many, many things for Shen Gongbao to handle in his stead.

But now Shen Gongbao is gone. And that is why Ao Guang finds himself the size of a snake, flailing about in a golden net. The juniors that catch him look to be about nearing twenty in human years, the most obnoxious of ages among mortal men. The fact that they are garbed in the Chan Sect’s finest colors means they are rich young men, which makes them even worse. The boys—because all mortal men are boys in Ao Guang’s eyes—point and jeer at their catch, marveling at how “ugly” and “pathetic” this little snout-nosed snake spirit is. Ao Guang does not think these children are much to look at themselves, but he bites his tongue.

Fortunately, they do not see the little snake roll its eyes at them. They take it back to Yuxu Palace, as Ao Guang hoped, and when they leave it for their seniors to take and refine, the glamor wears off.

Ao Guang’s abilities are vast, but shapeshifting is not among them. He can incarnate into the shape of a man, but that is as far as his transformations go. 

It was Li Jing, looking through the rubble of Chentang Pass (because he was alone and grieving, and he needed to do something, anything at all; Ao Guang understood this; Ao Guang had done the same many times before), who found the little leopard’s corpse. Ao Guang knew Shen Gongbao had a brother. He did not know his name. And with the corpse, Li Jing found a compass, magicked with something Taiyi Zhenren recognized as a spirit tracker. 

“It’s not all that hard to do,” Taiyi said, accent swiveling back and forth on his tongue, “family used to make me wear these when I was a round little babe, but I think this leads to- oh, oh, OH-”

He said it led to his junior brother. He said it meant Shen Gongbao was alive, else the wooden needle wouldn’t tick. That begged the question of where he went. Li Jing thought he’d perished along with the rest of Chentang Pass. He thought Ao Guang’s siblings—three creatures of flesh and blood that he’d raised, that had once stuck by his side through a millenia of chains—murdered Shen Gongbao.

Loyalty ran in dragon blood. But dragon blood was cold. This, Ao Guang always knew. Their betrayal stung, but he severed any emotion for them just as easily as they did him. 

Taiyi gave the compass to Ao Guang, as if he was the only one with the right to have it, and Li Jing asked him what he planned to do, as if it was the most natural thing to ask. As if it never occurred to them that Ao Guang would simply shrug and say, “It doesn’t matter to me.”

They were right. That never occurred to him.

Ao Guang told them to carry on with their lives. He would find Shen Gongbao and bring him home (it never occurred to him that Shen Gongbao might not consider the Eastern Sea ‘home’). He told Taiyi not to tell Ao Bing—his son was too noble to leave such a matter alone and Nezha was too hot-blooded to leave any of Ao Bing’s matters alone, and the last thing Shen Gongbao would want was to be a distraction for Ao Bing. 

“It’s pointing at Yuxu,” Taiyi said. He looked at Ao Guang like he was crazy. “You can’t just storm heaven like this, especially now!”

He glared. “Do you have a better idea, Master Taiyi?”

Taiyi did. The King of the Eastern Sea could sneak into Yuxu Palace, disguised as a small white snake. He told Ao Guang when the juniors went on their fishing breaks, and what incentive they had to capture low-level demons. He could put a spell on Ao Guang and turn him into exactly such a low-level snake. All Ao Guang needed to do was hide the extent of his power. 

Then Ao Guang said crisply, “Do it.” He did not hesitate. It never occurred to him that he should.

After turning the mighty dragon king into a pitiful snake, Taiyi put him into a basket and carried him to the river where he claimed the juniors would be. Taiyi muttered to himself the whole way. 

“This better work, your majesty”--and that ‘your majesty’ sounded a tad sarcastic—”I hope my junior brother means as much to you as much as you mean to him. He’s not the risky type, definitely not the selfless type, really, I think he has psychological issues, definitely issues- but he put your cause above his own, tried to kill me twice, which says quite-a-lot, so I hope, I hope you really do see him as family.”

Ao Guang thought that was a ridiculous thing to say, because he didn’t even think of his actual family as family anymore. Then he remembered the way Shen Gongbao used to stand at a distance, just far enough to look like an outsider. He had that habit, of always slinking away when Ao Guang spoke with his siblings about trivial things, like he had no purpose beyond training Ao Bing.

He always appeared somewhat lonely to Ao Guang, or maybe he was just skinny. Ao Guang never gave it much thought, because Shen Gongbao was just a means to an end. They agreed to use each other, after all. There was nothing more to it. But it still nagged at him when Ao Run said he gave an outsider too much control over his son, when Ao Shun mocked Shen Gongbao’s stammer behind his back. 

Maybe because he’d come to take Shen Gongbao for granted. That stuttering leopard had stood by his side every day for the past three years, his presence as familiar to Ao Guang as the scales on his back. For once, there’d been someone who he could rely on, and with that came a sense of safety Ao Guang hadn’t felt for something close to ten thousand years. (And when Shen Gongbao is gone, Ao Guang finds himself looking back out of habit, or staring down at his side, as if expecting someone standing there in the leopard’s place. There is nothing but empty air.)

Ao Guang is old enough to know the difference between flattery and sincerity. Many had tried to flatter him in the past—and the ones that once worked tooth and nail to court his favor were the very same ones who happily left him to rot when heaven turned its back on his kind. Shen Gongbao knew how to temper him, but his words had never been anything but sincere.

“They say a king is only worth as much as what he’s done,” Ao Guang told him, one night when he wanted to admit he was tired and the chains were too heavy, “my people have followed me into ruin, yet they think I can lead them back to the light.”

He did not want the others to hear. He was only certain that Shen Gongbao would listen, that Shen Gongbao would not tell anyone else what he’d heard. He did not expect him to respond. 

“Ao Guang—” And that was the first night he’d called Ao Guang by name. “Your people would follow… follow you to the corners of heaven and Earth, because you are brave, headstrong… un- uncompromising.”

He looked at Ao Guang, green eyes gleaming like a cat’s. “You’re proud of who- what you are. With you, they can be proud too. For the demon race, that is a rare- rare thing to come by.”

Shen Gongbao sounded like he believed each word, and then, Ao Guang realized that was how this leopard saw him. It stirred something strange within, a complex ball of feelings he couldn’t quite untangle.

“Is that how you see me too?” is all he asked in the end.

The lava from below cast a pink tinge on the ends of Shen Gongbao’s ears. “Yes.”

Ao Guang never gave his words any more thought after, mostly because he did not know how. There were more important things to worry about, besides. And then, as Taiyi shook him out of the basket and into the river, he remembered finding Shen Gongbao quite literally licking his wounds in a corner with no light.

He had the head of a leopard, too weak to sustain human skin, his lips wet with blood. He pressed himself flat against the cavern when he saw Ao Guang appear, like he’d been caught doing something wrong. 

“Who did it?” Ao Guang asked him, his voice lower than a hiss.

Shen Gongbao tried to deflect, tried every excuse under the sun, but eventually, he relented, fumbling over his words as he admitted— “It looks worse than it is.”

He said Ao Bing had struck him when they sparred earlier in the day. He told Ao Guang that Ao Bing was growing stronger by the day, and he sounded quite proud of the fact. But Ao Bing was too kind for his own good, Shen Gongbao felt. If Ao Bing knew how hard his blows struck, he would hold back in the future, and that was something they could not afford. Ao Guang did not need any more convincing. He believed Shen Gongbao on the spot, agreed with him without so much as a question.

But he was still displeased by the image of Shen Gongbao hiding his wounds in the dark. He did not like being unable to help. Back then, he simply ignored it. There was no point otherwise.

And still, as he floated down the river, he thought of the compass and Li Jing’s account. He didn’t like the idea of that leopard lying somewhere hurt, didn’t like the idea of him in Wuliang’s clutches. He knew, better than anyone, how heaven treated those it deemed traitors. And it had never been kind to Shen Gongbao, even when he was one of them.

So once Taiyi’s glamor wears off, Ao Guang barely feels the net cut into his cheekbone when he returns to the size of a dragon, then a man. He makes short work of the net and the unfortunate disciples that try to stand in his way. He has no doubt that the Chan Sect’s strongest are still in no condition to fight after the losses they suffered at Chentang Pass.

That certainly explains why the disciples that come to stop him are so weak. He almost pities them when he knocks them down. Almost. Ao Guang has never been as magnanimous as his third son. 

The dungeon is a long way down. 

By the time he forces his way in, he has left a string of unconscious celestials in his wake. As much as he would like to, he makes it a point not to waste time killing any of the juniors standing in his way. Until he steps into the prison below.

There is an old man with sallow cheeks—though younger than Ao Guang by far—strung up by thorny vines, his long beard tangled with blood and dirt. But the sight of his missing arm and the shape of his nose make it clear who he is straight away. This is Ao Bing’s shigong, the father of his Master, and someone he’d guiltily thought dead. 

The compass cracks in Ao Guang’s hand.

Not far away, there is another figure caged in by the same harsh thorns. There is so much blood that Ao Guang cannot see where old wounds end and new wounds start. But he would recognize the contour of that waist anywhere. A youth garbed in goose yellow stands in front of Shen Gongbao, a hand in his unkempt hair—and Ao Guang has never seen Shen Gongbao look anything but immaculate and pristine—as he shoves his sagging head back and forth like a doll.

With his other hand, the disciple strikes Shen Gongbao in the ribs, grinning when blood spurts from his mouth. The grin dies when Ao Guang yanks him back by the scruff of his collar.

The disciple cries out, suddenly alert to Ao Guang’s presence all at once. His eyes bulge. “Who-”

“Why don’t you fight someone who can fight back?” Ao Guang snarls into his face, features flaring. 

The youth tries calling for help, but his eyes tell Ao Guang he knows who the dragon king is, which means he knows he is about to die. Ao Guang drops him onto his knees.

“Scum,” Ao Guang says, his blood boiling, searing, burning thrice over, “scum.”

He lifts the disciple by the head, steel claws digging into that fragile scalp.

The bastard begs. “Please- please- no, no-”

But the begging disgusts him more. Ao Guang crushes his skull and lets the body crumple like spare trash.

He steps over it without looking back. 

He slices the vines.

Then he is sitting on the cold floor, holding Shen Gongbao in his arms. Even when human, Ao Guang easily towers over all around him. But he has never considered Shen Gongbao small. He does now. He finds the weight in his arms concerningly light, finds the flutter of Shen Gongbao’s chest strange and slow. 

“Forgive me,” Ao Guang tells him rather mechanically, unsure what else to say, “I arrived late.”

He can’t quite look away from the blood smeared over Shen Gongbao’s skin, mostly bare now that so little of his black robe remains. It is not hard to figure out the source of his wounds: handiwork from blades and whips and scalding liquid, and the thorns that had eaten away at his flesh for however long before Ao Guang arrived. It is harder to find a clean patch of skin, nearly impossible for Ao Guang to place his hands against any part of flesh that is not bruised or burnt or torn. So he opts to hold Shen Gongbao as lightly as he can instead.

“You’ve suffered these past days, haven’t you?” Ao Guang says, watching him take a sharp, pained breath.

Shen Gongbao stirs, as if just now realizing he is no longer hanging by the arms. The slices in his shoulder stretch as he moves. Ao Guang stills, suddenly seeing the cuts for what they are: characters, engraved into skin like ink on paper. Beast, they read. Like ink on parchment and not a blade into living flesh. He does not know if Shen Gongbao is aware of what the wound says, or if he is, if he had been aware enough to endure the pain and humiliation as they carved that into him.

Ao Guang wishes he had made that disciple suffer more.

Shen Gongbao’s bloodied lips part, but nothing comes out, or perhaps his voice is too small for Ao Guang to hear. Ao Guang leans in.

“Ao… Guang,” Shen Gongbao rasps, his voice grainy and cracked, “...you… hurt- hurt-”

“It hurts?” Ao Guang furrows his brow. “Where does it hurt?” Then he feels stupid for asking. ‘Where doesn’t it hurt?’ might have been the better thing to ask.

Shen Gongbao looks up at him with a swollen eye, his gaze hazy and not quite there. He lifts a weak, bleeding arm. “-hurt…”

A shaky hand presses against Ao Guang’s face, Shen Gongbao’s thumb brushing over the line of golden blood still streaking down his cheek, from where the net had cut. 

“Are you hurt?” Shen Gongbao wheezes out.

Ao Guang blinks, his chest suddenly so tight that it might as well crack. His vision blurs, the world going warm. And then he hears himself say-

“Yes!”

Just as his tears come out, first landing on Shen Gongbao’s hand and then dripping over his battered face. 

Chapter Text

It is too conspicuous to leave Yuxu in the shape of a dragon. So Ao Guang returns to the Eastern Sea as a man, Shen Gongbao cradled in his arms, and the elder leopard slung over his back. 

In truth, the dragon palace is still foreign to Ao Guang. His memories of the Eastern Sea Palace are as distant as muted watercolor, shapes of something he can no longer name. He had been present at every banquet, tasted and touched each luxury, basked in the moonlight shimmering into the sea—but those are a stranger’s memories now. All of that had been bestowed on him as easily as it was taken away. And now it has all come back.

The fire and ash are gone, replaced with walls of pale crystal and patterns of lacquered blue. Everything is exactly as he remembered, without a speck of dust or unseemly crack in place. But Ao Guang does not feel right sitting on the dragon king’s throne anymore. He does not feel right in any corner of this grand palace that he once called home.

The prison had been torture, the lava scorching, the chains heavy. He’d hated that pillar, and he’d hated the purgatory the Eastern Sea had become. But it had been all he’d known for centuries and centuries. And centuries. 

Now the palace, restored to its former glory, unnerves him with all its perfections and splendor. The fact that it’s so quiet doesn’t help.

His siblings are gone. His sons are gone. And Shen Gongbao-

Shen Gongbao is alive. Ao Guang doesn’t consider anything else. A handful of sea demons fought for the right to tend Taoist Shen when they first caught sight of him in Ao Guang’s arms, perhaps thinking that would endear them more to their king. Or maybe they were concerned about Shen Gongbao, even grateful to him for all he’d risked (and that stuttering leopard had always been worth more than he thought himself, Ao Guang has come to realize).

Ao Guang didn’t have the patience, or maybe the heart, to turn his subjects down, so he let them help. He let them cut away the remnants of Shen Gongbao’s robe and fetch mortal gauze. But he washed the leopard’s wounds himself, gently scrubbing away the grime and dabbing each gash clean (he didn’t like how bony and brittle Shen Gongbao felt in his hands, how limp and light he seemed, how so very breakable and easy to kill). The bathwater ran red by the time he finished. Then under his eye, he watched a squid with defter hands bind each terrible wound. Shen Gongbao didn’t stir once.

They laid him up in one of the many bedrooms that once belonged to a long-dead member of the dragon clan. Now Ao Guang sits in a chair by his bedside, his armor stripped. He thinks the bed is rather small, big enough for just one man of his own stature. But with how thin Shen Gongbao is, the bed is big enough for two, perhaps three.

Shen Gongbao is pallid in an ashen way, even more so than usual, and it makes the bruises peeking out of his bandages look especially dark. Painful. Ao Guang brushes a thumb over the cut on Shen Gongbao’s lip, lightly tracing upwards over the dip of his mouth and the gash on the bridge of his nose. 

He has seen Shen Gongbao meditate many times in the past. He should be used to seeing him with his eyes shut. But Shen Gongbao seemed at peace back then, in control of his features at the very least. Ao Guang has seen him asleep too—when Ao Bing was younger, he would often nap in the middle of the day, Shen Gongbao curled around him like a large cat. Shen Gongbao was always tense, even when asleep, but he did not look like he was dying. He did not look like he was in pain.

He looks like he is in pain now, like everything hurts so much that his features can’t help but go tight. (And that hurts Ao Guang more than he cares to admit.)

Ao Guang stops his hand over Shen Gongbao’s brow, the fevered skin too warm for comfort under his palm.

“Wake up,” Ao Guang says to him, a gruff command. 

Ao Guang doesn’t budge from Shen Gongbao’s side, despite the sea creatures’ insistence that he rest and leave the vigil to one of the various underlings lazing about. He ignores them, and if he feels particularly annoyed, he glares at them. The glare alone is enough to shut them all up.

He can’t bring himself to say so aloud, but truth be told, Ao Guang is afraid that Shen Gongbao will not recognize the dragon palace when he wakes up. He does not want Shen Gongbao to think himself still at Yuxu Palace, still subject to whatever tortures those celestials think up. He does not want Shen Gongbao to think that Ao Guang left him to die, does not want him to think Ao Guang blames him (does not want him to think anyone blames him) for what happened to Chengtang Pass. 

Ao Guang wants to be there when he wakes, to tell him that he and his father are safe, to tell him that Ao Bing has forged his own path, to tell him that “you did well.” My own blood and bone betrayed me so readily. You stood by me to the very end. That moves me, perhaps as much as it scares me.

But Shen Gongbao barely stirs, and Ao Guang says nothing as he tips water down his lips.

“What d’you take me for, some kind of outsider? Why didn’t you tell me you brought him back? So you just planned to leave me hanging out there forever - !”

Taiyi gives Ao Guang an earful for not sending word as soon as he left Yuxu. He barely flinches when Ao Guang regards his lecture with a cold glare, not once teetering back in his rant. Frankly, Ao Guang had no idea he was expecting word. And frankly, he had no idea why Taiyi should even care. 

He tells Taiyi just as much. “You said so yourself. Shen Gongbao tried to kill you and Nezha twice. You should want nothing to do with him.”

He says it bluntly, though without malice. Ao Guang is not what they call clever, but he is not that much of a fool. He is well aware that everything he owes Shen Gongbao has come at Taiyi’s expense. It is simply fact.

But Taiyi only looks at Ao Guang like he’s the stupid one, like he’s some small-minded fool who doesn’t understand how the great universe works. His cheeks turn red, those jovial eyes narrowing into a glare. 

“How dare you!” Taiyi snaps, “I’m his senior brother!” Like that explains everything.

It does throw Ao Guang off, however, because he can’t fathom what that even means. Does that entail forgiveness? Some bizarre form of unconditional love? Some riddle that only Chan Sect disciples understand?

But before Ao Guang can tell Taiyi just how stupid his statement sounds, a new voice cuts in, wobbly and weak, “Are you… the dragon king of the Eastern Sea?”

They whip their heads towards the source of that voice: the elder Shen, falling to his knees and remaining arm. Taiyi catches him before he hits the floor in that rushed attempt to kowtow. The turtles charged with tending the elder leopard arrive a step late.

“I am,” Ao Guang says.

Shen Zhengdao watches him with wet eyes, some indecipherable emotion within. 

“The Chan Sect told me-” Shen Zhengdao stares straight at him, no intention of looking away, “my son conspired with you and your clan, that he stole the spirit pearl for your son… is this true?”

Ao Guang walks over to where the old leopard kneels. Solemn, he says, “Yes.”

Ao Guang tells him everything.

“I see, I see,” is all Shen Zhengdao has to say afterward. There are no doubt many, many things running through his mind, but Ao Guang does not expect Shen Zhengdao to share any of that with him. 

Then crawling forward, he clutches Ao Guang’s sleeve. “Your majesty, can I see him?”

Ao Guang hesitates, but he knows Ao Bing was the cause of the elder leopard’s missing arm. The least he can do is grant Shen Zhengdao’s request. He says yes.

Shen Zhengdao does not leave Shen Gongbao’s room for a terribly long time. From outside the walls, Ao Guang thinks he can hear a father weep.

After the turtles put Shen Zhengdao to bed, Ao Guang has no choice but to let Taiyi look over Shen Gongbao next. Ao Guang watches from the corner while he does so. Taiyi mutters to himself the whole time, perhaps scolding Shen Gongbao under his breath. But then the yapping stops, and the silence that follows lasts long enough to sting.

Ao Guang tenses, waiting for Taiyi to speak. But Taiyi does not. And the longer the quiet drags, the more dread fills the air. 

Ao Guang does not like it. “Master Taiyi?”

Taiyi looks up at him, as if coming back to his senses. His face—usually so plump and golden—is bloodless, drained grey and crestfallen. His eyes glisten. When he speaks, it sounds as if each word comes with the price of a tooth pulled out:

“They severed his meridians.”

He might as well have told Ao Guang the sky has fallen apart.

“I didn’t think they’d be this cruel,” Taiyi says, clutching one of Shen Gongbao’s bandaged hands in his own, “our senior brother is a bastard, yes, but I didn’t think he’d- this is his junior brother! How could he, how could he!? How the fuck could he!?”

Taiyi’s accent is so rough that there is little distinction between the intonation of his curses and his formalities, but Ao Guang hears the fury in that “fuck” just now, like a knife cutting through. 

If nothing else, Shen Gongbao has always taken pride in his cultivation. Defined himself by it. Lived by it. Perhaps Wuliang knew. Perhaps it amused him to break away at those meridians bit by bit each day until there was nothing left, until Shen Gongbao was left with less than a mortal’s endurance, broken from the inside out. Wuliang took from Shen Gongbao the one thing about himself he ever valued. 

But Ao Guang doesn’t share in Taiyi’s rage or Shen Zhengdao’s sorrow just yet. He only hears himself ask, “Did it hurt him, when they did it?”

Taiyi doesn’t look at him. “How could it not?”

Ao Guang wishes he had snapped every neck at Yuxu Palace. He doesn’t say so out loud. The look on his face says enough.

So long as Shen Gongbao sleeps, Ao Guang does not. He doesn’t need to anyway.

Night has fallen once more, and the palace is dim, only shards of moonlight dripping through window slats. The dull glow touches Shen Gongbao too, softening his features and making him look just a bit younger. Though compared to Ao Guang, he is young.

“I don’t care how many years of cultivation you have,” Ao Guang tells him, though he doubts the leopard can hear, “you’ll always have a place here in the Eastern Sea.”

He adjusts the pillow behind Shen Gongbao’s head, pulls the cover up to his chin. 

“And I’ll care for you, even if I have to for the rest of your life.”

He wants to say, because I owe you for raising my son, aiding my tribe. But he can’t quite bring himself to because he knows it is a lie. Frankly, he just doesn’t want to imagine a world without Shen Gongbao by his side. 

There is nothing they can do for Shen Gongbao’s fever, so Ao Guang simply waits while he quivers in bed. Now that Shen Gongbao has started to stir, feverish nightmares make him moan and thrash in his sleep. Fortunately, Ao Guang notes with some guilt, Shen Gongbao is too weak to do more than twitch and paw at empty air.

But then the thrashing gets worse, as do the shivers and the guttural noises leaving his throat. When blood breaks across the gauze on Shen Gongbao’s waist, Ao Guang practically leaps into bed. 

He holds Shen Gongbao from behind, firmly locking his limbs in place. He hopes his blood is cold enough to cool the leopard down, hopes his skin is warm enough to keep the leopard warm. Shen Gongbao attempts to writhe, shoulderblades bumping against Ao Guang’s chest. But Ao Guang keeps firm, curling all of himself around Shen Gongbao. 

“I’m here,” Ao Guang whispers into his ear, “I’m here.”

I won’t let anyone, anything harm you. Not anymore. Never again.

He holds Shen Gongbao throughout the night, only letting go when the squid demon returns to change those bandages and rub in Taiyi’s balm.

Taiyi divides his time between the Eastern Sea and Chentang Pass. Before he leaves to visit Li Jing, he volunteers a number of items from the pouch at his side, enchanted potions and the like. 

“I don’t need your toys,” Ao Guang says, curt.

“How can a king be so ignorant!” is the lamenting reply. “These are gifts from my Master, Tianzun himself! See this here? Use this balm for junior brother’s wounds, and feed him this herb when he wakes, it’ll numb the pain, replenish his blood—” And he talks and talks.

Ao Guang has an underling write all of that down, but he’s mostly just surprised by the sheer amount of things in Taiyi’s possession. Shen Gongbao never had any enchanted items to gift Ao Bing. Ao Guang doubts he even had such a pouch. Maybe, Ao Guang wonders with an uncomfortable sting, Tianzun had thought Shen Gongbao unworthy of such gifts. (And again, Ao Guang is seized by that odd desire to give Shen Gongbao something, anything to prove to him that the Eastern Sea will never belittle him as the Chan Sect had.)

After Taiyi leaves, Ao Guang returns to his place by Shen Gongbao’s side, unsure why it somehow hurts him to look upon that leopard’s face. (But that is a lie. Ao Guang knows why.)

“Ao Guang?”

When Shen Gongbao finally wakes, his eyes are bleary, his voice hoarse. He can barely turn his head, lips too heavy to move. But he is conscious, fever broken, and after all those hellish nights keeping vigil, Ao Guang is simply glad to see him awake. It makes him feel light as seafoam, relieved in a way that he did not expect.

“I’m here,” Ao Guang says to him, keeping his tone even, “we are at the Eastern Sea.”

Shen Gongbao does not remark on his strange surroundings, perhaps not quite aware yet. But he does attempt, however weakly, to grab Ao Guang’s hand.

“My- my f… father,” he gasps, the stammer worse with each breathless word, “did… did you-”

“He’s here. He’s safe.”

Shen Gongbao’s hand relaxes, but Ao Guang catches it before it goes limp. 

Ao Guang glimpses something wet at the corner of Shen Gongbao’s eye. 

“Thank you,” Shen Gongbao says to him, “thank you- thank you-” It sounds like he wants to say more, but his eyes roll back and he again falls unconscious before the words come out.

When Shen Gongbao next wakes up, Ao Guang orders him not to speak, thinking the act too strenuous. He props Shen Gongbao against the headboard and tells him about what happened after the Battle of Chentang Pass. He tells him that Li Jing lives, but Lady Yin has died saving her son. He tells him of the battle against Wuliang and how Ao Bing chose to leave the Eastern Sea. Ao Guang tells him all this without fanfare, simply recounting the events as they were.

Shen Gongbao does not react beyond a nod here and there. 

Then he says, “Tell Li Jing, I’m sorry about General Yin.” He catches his breath. “And Ao Bing… tell him Master wishes him- him well.”

Ao Guang smiles, the barest twitch of the mouth. “Tell them yourself. Once you’re well enough, we-”

But Shen Gongbao shakes his head, a bitter grin breaking across his face. “No- your majesty- Ao Guang- I- I can’t.”

Ao Guang raises a brow. “What do you mean?”

“At the dungeon of Yuxu, my senior bro- Wuliang told me to accept a c- curse in exchange for my, my father’s life.” Shen Gongbao stares up at Ao Guang, his bruises now a yellowish tinge, his eyes—almost innocently catlike—apologetic. “I accepted. I’m sorry, Ao Guang.”

“What do you mean?” Ao Guang asks again, angrier this time.

“Wuliang will make me do his bidding. I could- could turn on you if he wishes.”

This is nonsense, Ao Guang thinks, though those words scare him more than he cares to show. A binding spell is fatal. It certainly explains the horrid state of Shen Gongbao’s condition and the fever that took so long to break. But the curse did nothing to stop Ao Guang from escaping that dungeon. It did nothing to stop his wounds from healing over. Then surely it was not so strong. Surely, there was a cure-

“I’ve been selfish,” Shen Gongbao says, as if unaware of the emotions flying through Ao Guang’s face, “and cow- cowardly. I’ve cheated, stolen, killed. My hands are so- so dirty, but-”

“I’m not listening to this,” Ao Guang snaps, “I’ll fetch Taiyi Zhenren. Your senior brother will know how to deal with this-”

“You were the only one who never cared who- who I was, what I’ve done… I regret so much, Ao Guang… but-”

Ao Guang stands, unwilling to hear any more of this. “Save your breath. We’ll discuss this later-”

But Shen Gongbao keeps talking, as if determined to push each ridiculous word out. “-but not Ao Bing. Ao Bing is the one, one thing I’d never regret.”

From the corner of his eye, Ao Guang sees Shen Gongbao lift a trembling hand, his dark nails sharp and long. The stutter disappears in his final words:

“So I won’t let Wuliang harm you, him, through this wretched curse.” 

Ao Guang hears the tear of flesh before he feels the warm splash of blood on his robes. He whips around, eyes wide.

Shen Gongbao lies still, the bed splattered with crimson, a jagged hole in his chest, the wound spilling what might as well be a river of blood. And in his palm, a violet sphere of electric light. 

Ao Guang pries the demon core from his grip, Shen Gongbao’s blood splashing over his wrist and wisps of silver hair. Frantic, he tries shoving it back through that terrible, terrible hole in Shen Gongbao’s broken chest, but nothing works despite the light streaming through the air and the fire from the ball in Ao Guang’s bloodied hand.

Then he can do nothing but hear himself cry out, “Master Shen- Master Shen- Shen Gongbao!”

Chapter Text

He runs along a path of bamboo stalks and river streams. The wind feels cool against his fur, the earth soft under his paws. He follows Shen Xiaobao’s tiny figure up the hill, the two of them frolicking and playfighting to their heart’s content.

He nuzzles Shen Xiaobao on the head, licks the messy hairs on his back. And when they nap under the bright sky, he curls around him, tail in tail as they soak in the sunlight.

It is wonderful, to have never left the Five Mountains and Seven Ridges, to have never bothered with something as stupid as becoming ‘human.’ There is freedom in staying as they are, leopards in the wild, light as the spring breeze.

But a clap of thunder wakes them. Shen Xiaobao wakes up first, water dripping onto his head.

They run from the rain, sheltering themselves inside a crude thatched hut, some smoke still rising from the dead fireplace at its center. It is familiar, this little hut. He wrinkles his nose while Shen Xiaobao pokes around the pots and pans lying about.

It smells like-

Father. Yes, he remembers now. This is the house Father built when he first became human, became a demon.

There is another scent. The rain. Salt from the sea… the sea… the sea…

And then Shen Xiaobao puts their heads together, nose touching his. 

You can’t stay here anymore, big brother, he says. He’s smiling.

Xiaobao-

You have to go, big brother. And so do I. I’ll be alright.

Xiaobao, no-

Don’t cry, big brother. Xiaobao will be fine. Xiaobao will meet you again-

Xiaobao, please-

There are lots of people waiting for you.

Xiaobao, I don’t want to-

You’ll always be my hero, big brother, no matter what. Remember that, alright?

Xiaobao-

Xiaobao-

Xiaobao!

(Salt from the sea)

Everything hurts. 

Shen Gongbao opens his eyes to a blur of vivid, painful colors, the rest of him aching and burning in places he did not know existed. His thoughts do not quite connect to his brain, much less his mouth, so only a pathetic confused groan leaves his parched lips.

“--junior brother-”

One voice enters his ears, or perhaps many voices. He can’t tell.

“Easy, easy!”

Something lifts him up, a pair of meaty hands under his arms. He finds himself moving along with those hands, his bones as limp as a doll’s.

“Open your mouth, there you go, good kitty-”

Something cool and smooth enters his mouth, the taste grassy and wet. He coughs, ribs shifting, and nearly collapses into the block of colors holding him up. A hand rubs up and down his spine, the voice by his ear growing louder.

“There you go, there you go, swallow that, junior brother. You’ll feel better-”

It’s familiar. It’s all familiar.

Then his senses return, one by one and agonizingly slow. He can feel the texture of gauze against his skin, so many bandages strapped to him that he might as well be inside a cocoon. He smells crisp air, a familiar cool scent with a touch of salt about it—the Eastern Sea, he’s sure. But wherever he is, he cannot place. The silky bed, lacquered windows, porcelain ceiling, painted walls. It is no less grand than Yuxu Palace, and yet-

“Where- where… am I?” he stutters out, more sluggish than he’d like.

His gaze shifts from the things around him to the creature, no, man, in front. The colors are clearer now, filling in a roundness that is distinctly human. Blue robes. High brows. Pink cheeks. And a flower bouncing side to side in the rim of a topknot crown (a flower he’d always called stupid mostly because he itched to paw at it).

Taiyi grins at him, insufferably smug. “Ah, ah. All those years in the Eastern Sea and you can’t recognize it? Junior brother, you’ll be surprised to know that this is the Dragon Palace. Not too shabby, eh?”

Indeed, Shen Gongbao thinks.

But his last memory is of the dungeon at Yuxu, Wuliang’s disciples doing their damndest to break his body apart. Then he remembers the thorns coming apart, himself staring into Ao Guang’s crimson glare. (Ao Guang cried. Shen Gongbao prefers not to dwell on why.) And then Ao Guang again-

He looks down, at the bandages around his chest. He flinches. The pain flares unbearably, so he certainly succeeded in tearing out the demon core. But the fact that he lives means he must have failed.

Panicking, Shen Gongbao wriggles away from Taiyi. (“Ai! Junior brother, be careful-!”)

“Li- listen to me!” Shen Gongbao snarls- though it sounds more like a hard rasp- into Taiyi’s face. “Senior brother placed an obedience curse on me. Everything else he did to me in the dungeon was just to- to test how far it could go to restrain me. He’ll certainly use it to attack now, I could kill you and Ao Guang and anyone here any time- the only way to stop it is to kill me- remove my demon core!”

To prove his point, he makes to grab Taiyi’s hand, only to stop in his tracks when he sees that his hands—both hands—are wrapped tight in dressings, almost mittenlike. While he stares at his hands, dumbstruck, Taiyi sighs.

“The old dragon’s idea was to cut your arms off, by the way,” Taiyi informs him, “I had a much more humane idea to keep you from injuring yourself.”

“Didn’t you hear me!?” Shen Gongbao shouts back, “unwrap these or kill me yourself, damned fatty! Before I get the chance to harm you!”

Taiyi glares at him, and curtly says, “No.”

“En ‘ll o’i my-elf,” Shen Gongbao says, biting at the bandages in a bad attempt to say, Then I’ll do it myself.

“Hey! Watch it, you’ll tear your stitches!” Taiyi pries Shen Gongbao’s head from his wrists with sheer brute force, and Shen Gongbao is so weak that he lacks the strength to even counter a move like this.

Taiyi presses him back down to bed, easily outpowering every protest.

“You’re not killing anyone in this condition, especially ol’ powerful me,” Taiyi says to him, “but if you really must know, the curse is broken. Your horrible demon core plan worked.”

As if sensing what Shen Gongbao plans to ask (or rather demand to know) next, Taiyi splays a hand over the thick bandages on his chest. 

“You’re still alive because Ao Guang offered to replace your demon core with dragon blood.”

Shen Gongbao blinks, not quite understanding.

“He made me cut off a piece of his heart for you. That’s at least ten thousand years of cultivation for a dragon as old as him, and just enough spirit to keep you alive.”

Shen Gongbao must look as devastated as he feels because Taiyi then says, much more gently, “Don’t panic, junior brother! He’s alive and well! Do you have any idea how huge a dragon heart actually is? He’ll survive.”

And now a thousand things reel through Shen Gongbao’s mind, mostly variations of how much he does not comprehend nor agree with what Ao Guang chose to do.

“Why would he- why didn’t you stop him- why-” he says and says, suddenly well aware of the throb behind his ribs. Loud, steady, and strong.

Taiyi shrugs. “Because he wanted to. And I didn’t stop him because I wanted him to too. I-” Taiyi takes Shen Gongbao’s bound hands into his own, something he hasn’t done since nearly one thousand years ago when he first called him ‘junior brother.’ “I didn’t want you to die.”

Again, Shen Gongbao asks, “Why?” After all I’ve done to you. After all I’ve done.

“Maybe because I’m ‘stupid,’ that’s what you always say. But I’d rather be stupid than remorseful.”

Shen Gongbao swallows, a lump balling in his throat. 

“Oh, oh, don’t cry! Junior brother, you know I can’t stand it when people cry!”

Shen Gongbao bows his head, unsure if it’s shame or guilt or the horrific realization that Taiyi would not stand to hear all the things he wants to say—I’m not worth it, you both should have let me die, I don’t deserve any of this concern, I should be dead, I should be dead.

Shoulders shaking, he says, “Senior… senior brother, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything…”

He does not remember the last time he called Taiyi ‘senior brother.’ Does not know if he is even worthy of calling him that anymore. 

When he dares glance up, Shen Gongbao hopes Taiyi cannot see the tears welling in his eyes. To his surprise, the tears never spill. Because Taiyi pulls him into his arms and starts sobbing first, wailing and wailing while he rocks Shen Gongbao back and forth.

“You really know how to scare someone!” Taiyi blubbers, “I thought you died-!”

He is able to hold his tears back with Taiyi. He fails when Shen Zhengdao arrives at his bedside next, when his father rubs a hand over his brow and says, “Father doesn’t blame you. Father would never blame you. I just wish-”

There are many things to say after, “I just wish”- 

Shen Gongbao does not need to hear them. He apologizes for Xiaobao. He apologizes for all the demons and mortals that died by his and Wuliang’s hand, all the dirty things he was once too stupid to refuse and too afraid to resist. 

Father, how can you look at me and not turn in disgust? How can you look at me and still call me ‘Bao’er’?

But Shen Zhengdao does, without a trace of hatred or disappointment in his watery eyes. 

“You didn’t fail me, or Xiaobao or the dragon king,” his father says, one arm around his shoulders, “I only wish I had protected you. I only wish-”

He does not know who cries first, himself or his father. And in one moment of indulgence, he allows himself to be a cub again, nestled in his parents’ embrace.

The subjects at the dragon palace greet him one by one, practically lining up at his door just to say some form of “I’m so glad you’re recovering, Master Shen” or from the less eloquent, “get better soon!” Shen Gongbao is not sure how many are sincere and how many are simply doing this because they want to be in Ao Guang’s good graces (because Shen Gongbao had been less than kind to a good number of sea demons and he’s quite sure he called the tortoise a ‘bastard’).

He becomes used to these visitations by the end of the day, or what he assumes to be the end of the day, given the change in light streaming down from above the water. So he states a simple, “Come in,” when he senses a new shadow at his door.

He freezes when the visitor enters, shutting the door behind. Ao Guang.

Ao Guang comes forward, dressed in a set of pale robes lined with red. His face is haggard, almost sallow and old despite no change in his chiseled features. He looks ill, sick in a way that Shen Gongbao has never seen him.

“Ao Guang,” Shen Gongbao says, immediately attempting to kowtow though he’s unsure how that would help.

Ao Guang stops him with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Don’t strain your wounds.”

“Ao Guang-” he says again, trailing off when Ao Guang silences him with a fiery glare.

“I should kill you,” Ao Guang hisses, “for that stunt. But I won’t because that would render all our efforts to keep you alive meaningless.”

Ao Guang squeezes his shoulder, as if tempted to break it, but he does not press down hard enough to bruise. “Never do that again.”

“I had no choice,” Shen Gongbao tells him flatly. “And you should never… never have gone to such, such lengths for me.”

Ao Guang purses his lips. Then slowly, he removes his hand from Shen Gongbao’s shoulder. He pulls his red collar apart, revealing the wet gauze around his broad chest. Swiftly, he pulls the gauze away, uncovering a still-healing scar over his breast, the skin smeared with leaking gold. 

“I had no choice as well,” Ao Guang says, low. “I would have drained all my blood dry if need be. Do you understand?”

Ao Guang sits himself upon the bed. Shen Gongbao instinctively backs away, but the headboard is already behind him. Ao Guang’s scar pierces his vision. It hurts to look at though Shen Gongbao cannot turn away, try as he might.

Ao Guang’s chest rises and falls to the rhythm of his own. Shen Gongbao can see it. He can hear it as well, the steady beat of the same heart behind their ribs. He does not quite know what to say, the sacrifice still too surreal to wrap his head around. Too grand, too great for a life like his.

“You think I should have let you die,” Ao Guang says.

It is not a question. Shen Gongbao does not refute.

“I thought as much.” Ao Guang comes closer. “Master Shen- Shen Gongbao, if it had been me lying in your place, if it had been Ao Bing… ill, injured, on the verge of death, would you have been content to let it happen?”

He does not need to ponder the answer. “N- never!”

“Then why should I be happy to let you die?”

He does not have an answer. 

“I’m not-” Ao Guang is much too close, and now Shen Gongbao recognizes the fury in his face for what it truly is: fear. “-I’m not good with putting these things into words. I never have been. But the fact of the matter is, I’ve grown to care for you, deeply, and I can’t bear to lose you.”

Shen Gongbao feels his heart thud against the flesh of his chest. He is unsure if it is his own doing or Ao Guang’s.

“I can’t bear to see you in pain,” Ao Guang tells him, slowly pushing each word out, “I can’t bear to think of all you’ve endured in the past, without me by your side. I imagine- I don’t know if you feel the same.”

It thuds and thuds, a drum bursting at the seams.

And Shen Gongbao can no longer lie to Ao Guang’s face.

“I do,” Shen Gongbao says, quiet, “I have, for a long time… but- I have nothing left to off-offer you with my body like this-”

Ao Guang slips shaky fingers under his chin, tipping Shen Gongbao up until they are eye to eye. “I don’t care. So long as you’re here, in the Eastern Sea with me.”

Then his hands shift, sliding up Shen Gongbao’s temples and holding his head in place. “I know you think little of yourself. I imagine you don’t think so little of me. Then for my sake, will you at least try to…”

(Love yourself more. Survive.)

Ao Guang stops speaking, as if scared to say more. But he can say nothing that Shen Gongbao does not already expect to hear, perhaps thanks to the dragon’s blood thrumming behind his chest.

Shen Gongbao nods, just once.

Ao Guang laughs, a spark of warmth flashing across his hardened face. He pulls Shen Gongbao into his arms, embracing every part of him he can fit. Shen Gongbao leans into it, propriety be damned. 

“See? There’s nothing that a simple nod can’t convey.”