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For as long as Xiao Xingchen had known him, Song Lan had never once gotten sick. Never a fever, never nauseous, never even a sniffle. They were cultivators, afterall. They were not supposed to get sick.
Of course, they got curses, and they could easily get overtired - exorcising evil spirits and wandering the countryside non-stop took its toll. In fact, when Xingchen had first noticed Song Lan huff and puff, clearly over-exerted after their morning drills, he figured that was simply the case. They had been wandering for days, the last few of which had been seemingly nothing but yao after yao after yao. They had every right to be exhausted.
But this morning, Xingchen had gotten up when the sun first slipped over the horizon, just as they always did. Song Lan slept heavily beside him. It was unusual. Xingchen had let him be. It was nice, peaceful. He rarely ever got time to sit silently in the early chilly morning with his tea and study Song Lan’s even breaths and his still features. He thought he looked cute when he slept, even if Song Lan would blush and shake his head whenever Xingchen tried to tell him so.
Xingchen started to worry that he was uncomfortable on the cold forest floor, with only a blanket between him and the first dusting of snow. And Xingchen began to chew his lip, wordlessly chastising himself. They should have settled down somewhere for the winter. They were farther north than they had intended to go. The frost had come early and wiped out the crops in some parts of the Jianghu, and so they had followed a hungry, angry spirit-laden trail into the sweeping winds and sudden snowfall to help the common people. By now, they should be settled down somewhere, in some abandoned farm house or maybe with a kindly family with a spare shed, should they be so lucky. The wind would suck the life force from them and the bitter, damp cold would soon be unshakable, it would settle deep in their bones and wouldn’t leave until the spring. They would exhaust themselves quicker and risk becoming ill.
Beside him, still asleep, Song Lan sneezed.
Xingchen pressed the matter once, when Song Lan had first woken up, rubbing his still tired eyes and then his head.
“Are you feeling alright?” Xingchen passed him a cup of tea, knowing Song Lan hated talking about himself in any capacity, most of all about what he perceived as weakness. Song Lan took a sip of the pragmatic peace offering and while he didn’t say anything beyond the usual ‘thank you’, Xingchen could see the relief the warmth created in his throat.
“Of course. Why do you ask?”
“Nothing…you just seemed…tired.”
“People get tired, Xiao-DaoZhang.” It came off more harsh than he intended. Recently, they had dropped all formalities when they were alone with one another and he could tell Xingchen was taken aback by the addition of DaoZhang.
“I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to worry about me. We have people to take care of. We’re cultivators. I see no sense in wasting our resources on someone who can’t get sick.”
Xingchen tutted as he began preparing breakfast. “Cultivators can get sick, though we are less likely to,” he corrected.
“Xingchen. Leave it alone. If I were unwell, I would tell you.”
Xingchen sighed and passed Song Lan their morning meal. They both knew that Xiao Xingchen was too stubborn to drop it because Song Lan was too stubborn to tell him the truth. And so the pair sat in the early morning chill and tried to ignore the fact that Song Lan’s face was red.
…
Song Lan lingered at the campsite, trying to catch his breath even though all he had done was pack up their tent.
“Zichen—”
“We should get going, I know,” Song Lan interjected. Xingchen’s brow was furrowed and he frowned and Song Lan knew what he was going to say. “There’s a town a little further down the road.” They rarely visited towns; they usually preferred to linger in the countryside where the Major Sects, at best, dared not travel and at worst shipped off all the supernatural problems they did not feel like dealing with. “Perhaps, we should…” he wheezed a bit before continuing. “We should go there, just in case some trouble has risen. And we can see about stocking up supplies.”
“And find you a doctor,” Xingchen said under his breath.
“I don’t need a doctor, Xingchen.” Song Lan made a point of marching past Xingchen. “I have a strong golden core.” His cultivation partner caught up to him easily, with that bouncy, light step that let him sneak up and catch his wrist in his hand.
He smirked a bit, feeling the threadiness of Song Lan’s Qi. Xingchen was self-satisfied for a moment and his expression melted into an empathetic smile. “Zichen. Your Qi is—”
“I’m simply tired.” Song Lan tugged his wrist from Xingchen’s grasp.
“Whatever the cause, you are uncomfortable.” Xingchen sighed and slowed his pace, letting Song Lan slow with him.
Stubborn Bastard, Xingchen thought before an idea comes to him.
He winces and hopes he didn’t overdo it and let Zichen on to his plan. But Zichen takes the bait.
“Is everything okay?” He stops to ask.
“Truth be told, I’ve been a bit sore lately. Probably the changing seasons.”
Song Lan does not fuss. He cares, deeply. And Xingchen watches him carefully think through the distance to the next town, how much money they can spare for a cosy, warm bed in a dry, clean inn. “It’s good then, that we are heading somewhere we can rest.”
Xingchen smiled at the word we. “I would like that very much.”
If Zichen could not be convinced to stop and rest for himself, Xingchen would make him stop and rest.
…
Xingchen stopped the fake limping and all his overdramatic wincing the moment they stepped foot in the inn. With very little force, nothing more than a finger really, he pushed Zichen into bed.
“Rest,” he ordered before Zichen’s confused noises could become actual words of protest. “You’re clearly sick.”
“And you’re not hurt?”
“No.” Xingchen smiled cheekily. “I have such a strong golden core, I wouldn’t let a little wear-and-tear stop me. But you,” Xingchen pressed the back of his hand to Zichen’s searing forehead. “You are burning up. And I don’t like the sound of that cough. So lie down and rest, please.”
Xingchen turned and began unpacking his pouch, searching for some kind of herb or tincture that would bring Zichen’s fever down. He heard rustling from behind him. “Zichen,” he warned without taking his eyes off of the sachets of dried honeysuckle and bundles of burdock. “Don’t make me keep you in that bed with a talisman.”
Song Lan half-sighed and half-groaned. “I don’t like feeling useless.”
With a flourish of his sleeve, Xingchen settled down beside the bed with a small bowl of medicine. “You? Useless?”
Song Lan nodded, taking a sip of the medicine Xingchen silently offered him.
“Zichen, you are not useless.” Xingchen hesitated for a moment, but cleaned the droplets that lingered on Song Lan’s lips. He hated the feeling of stickiness and Xingchen knew he was too tired to do it himself. Song Lan said nothing and Xingchen pressed the topic again: “You’re just sick. Everyone gets sick. You’ll surely be better again soon, perhaps a few days rest and all will be well.”
Song Lan’s fever was clearly rising. Or at the very least, Song Lan had finally let himself show how weak he felt. His eyes drooped and his skin became flush. “To burden you…I cannot stand it.”
Xingchen’s brow furrowed. “You’re making no sense.” How many times had Song Lan cared for Xingchen? In their earliest days, it seemed like every other week, Xingchen would catch something. And of course, there were the many times he’d gotten too ahead of himself in a night hunt and injured himself. And there was the time when he’d tried so many new sweets he’d been sick to his stomach. Each time, though it made him visibly uncomfortable, Song Lan would sit with him, pull his hair from his face, comfort him, bring him water and medicine. It was beyond practical caretaking. “That I might be burdened by you,” Xingchen continued, adding a damp cloth to Song Lan’s forehead, “is incomprehensible to me. It is not often I get to take care of you the way you care for me. Lan’er, I consider it a privilege.”
Perhaps it was his reassurance or perhaps it was the medicine beginning to take effect, but Song Lan sighed and sleepily nodded his head.
Xingchen swept Song Lan’s sweat-sticky hair from his face. “Rest now, Lan’er.”
…
Growing up in a monastery, Song Lan had done his fair share of caretaking, whether it was spoon-feeding the elderly residents of the temple, confined to their beds, or mixing herbs for the ill who came to their door begging for aid. Theoretically and practically, he was well-versed in such things.
Xingchen … less so.
Through the headache-induced fuzz of pain and ringing in his ears, he could hear the clatter of bowls as his cultivation partner tried to make another batch of the medicine that was meant to reduce his fever. Muttering to himself, Xingchen listed the ingredients: dried bamboo leaves, honeysuckle, peppermint…”. He poured the concoction into a bowl.
“You’re forgetting burdock,”
Xingchen huffed. “I was getting to that.” He turned back toward his workstation, fumbling to find the burdock he’d completely forgotten about. “And you’re supposed to be resting!”
“If you’re going to waste our supplies when I’m hardly ill, at least do it correctly.”
Xingchen tried not to take it personally. Zichen was sick after all. Sick and uncomfortable. Grouchy. Oh, if the world could see how the renowned Bright Moon and Bitter Frost bickered like an old married couple. “I’m not wasting anything because you’re sick as a dog.”
“I am fi—“ Xingchen was vindicated when Song Lan trailed off into a fit of coughing. When it finally subsided, Song Lan panted and sunk further into the bed.
poor thing, Xingchen thought, settling down beside the bed with another dose of medicine.
Song Lan turned his nose up when offered a spoonful. “I do not need it.”
“Yes, Zichen, you do.”
“We should save it,” he said. His eyes were half closed, bleary and unfocused. That last fit of coughing had clearly exhausted him. “Save it for someone who needs it more. I will recover.” Zichen’s chest rose and fell quickly and every so often he would wince with pain when he breathed in. Xingchen wondered how long he had been sick for. At this rate, it was probably pneumonia, which would have needed ample time to fester.
Xingchen sighed. So Stubborn.
. “Right now, the person who needs it most is you.”
Zichen shook his head. Xingchen almost laughed. Here was his cultivation partner, a renowned rising star of the cultivation world, pouting like a child. Though Zichen’s sweat-laden forehead brought him back to the reality that Zichen was dangerously ill…and refusing treatment.
“Lan’er,” Xingchen whispered softly, sweetly. “May I touch you?”
Zichen nodded, and relaxed a little as Xingchen began threading his graceful fingers through his hair. Xingchen had an iciness to him, which Song Lan would normally fuss about, but right now, in his state, it was a welcome relief.
“Lan’er, I need to bring down your temperature.”
“You’re cold.” Zichen’s eyes closed in a clear sign of relief. “It’s nice.”
“Because you have a fever.” Xingchen said in his gentlest voice, although he wanted to roll his eyes.
Zichen was clearly ignoring him…or finally starting to drift off to sleep. Xingchen took it as a welcome opportunity to take a cold cloth and begin dabbing at his partner’s reddened forehead. Zichen’s eyelashes fluttered slightly, but he must have been too tired to argue because his eyes slipped shut again and he let his head fall to the side. Xingchen froze, not wanting to disrupt him. Heavens forbid he started making medicine again and renewed their argument. No, it was better to sit silently at Zichen’s sickbed until he was without a doubt asleep.
In the silvery winter hues, Zichen looked particularly pale, like all life had been drained from him. It broke Xingchen’s heart. His strong, resilient Zichen. Without thinking, Xingchen took Zichen’s hand and offered gentle comforting strokes with his thumb across the back of his hand. He bit his lip and chastised himself, silently of course, worried he’d ruined Zichen’s rest. Much to his relief, Zichen didn’t stir, in fact, he visibly relaxed. It would have been sweet, had Zichen’s limp body not frightened him so much.
“Zichen,” Xingchen’s voice was soaked in nerves. He was done bickering. “Zichen, please rest,” he begged, continuing to comfort him, “But I am going to find you a doctor. We don’t have a choice…I can’t lose you.”
Xingchen stood up with conviction about to turn toward the door, only to be snagged by Zichen’s suddenly iron grip.
“Please don’t leave,” his once stalwart partner squeaked out. “Please, just lie down beside me. You’re the only thing that makes me feel better.”
Xingchen obliged, letting Song Lan settle his head on his chest. He once again began dabbing the cold cloth against Zichen’s head and, with his free hand, petting his hand in reassurance.
They stayed like this for a few minutes.
Sleepily, Song Lan apologized. “I was grumpy. I am not used to being sick…Thank you for taking care of me.”
Xingchen planted a kiss on his forehead. Still warm, he noted. “You are stubborn, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The fever did not break, nor did the chills subside. Xingchen was no healer afterall, but he was a caretaker. Though eventually, once Song Lan fell into a deep sleep, Xingchen immediately left to find him a doctor.