Work Text:
Cheong Myeong should have realized that something was wrong back when he had returned to their home after his early morning training only to find a-Jiu still bundled up in bed.
But he didn't. He just assumed a-Jiu was feeling a bit lazy, that he was taking a well-earned day off. Even teased him about it, a bit, sitting at the edge of their bed and brushing a strand of hair away from a-Jiu's face.
"I'll bring you something sweet when I come back," he promised, when it didn't seem like a-Jiu had any intention of moving anytime soon.
A single green eye peeked up at him, a hand shooting out to grasp his sleeve in an oddly strong grip. "Don't leave," a-Jiu rasped out.
Ahhh, so clingy... Unfortunately, Cheong Myeong knew better than to fall for this. "I see how it is." he nodded sagely. "A-Jiu intends to trap his poor sahyoung in his very comfortable embrace to then have an excuse to do his second favourite thing in the world and scold him for slaking off, ah?"
Twisting around, Cheong Myeong divested himself of his outer robe, leaving it clutched between a-Jiu's fingers. He was meaning to change, anyways, and did so quickly before heading for the doors. "I'll be back before you know it!"
"Don't forget..." He heard in response from the bundle of fabrics.
A-Jiu must have really craved those sweets, Cheong Myeong figured. Once he finished torturing training the disciples, he'd bring him a lovely breakfast!
***
The training was almost finished when an older disciple came running, gasping for breath before Cheong Myeong. Hm, perhaps he should rope in the second class disciples into the training again? He thought they could keep up on their own now, but evidently-
"Sabu! It's Shen-sabu! He's-"
That's as much as Cheong Myeong heard before he took off. The urgency threading through the words was enough to know that something was wrong, and Cheong Myeong didn't think that standing around and letting the disciple stumble over their words was the best course of action.
He made it back in record time, slowing to a stop as he approached the house. A-Jiu was outside, dressed only in his night clothes and the outer robe Cheong Myeong had left with him, sword held loosely in his grip as he listed unsteadily in front of a couple of disciples. These poor kids were clearly trying to herd him back inside without causing any damage to either a-Jiu or themselves.
They looked hilariously relieved to see Cheong Myeong arrive.
"Hey, a-Jiu-" Cheong Myeong found himself at the end of a-Jiu's sword before he could even finish the sentence. But the glare a-Jiu shot him was unfocused, clearly not really aware of what was happening. Alright then. He tilted his head towards the juniors. "Anyone wanna tell me what's going on?"
"We don't know!" One of the disciples said while all of them urgently retreated behind Cheong Myeong's back. "We noticed Shen-sabu coming out of the house, but he was bracing himself against the doorway so we wanted to ask if he needed any help, and he just- Started waving his sword around, saying something about arson...?"
Oh. Oh, no.
"I'll take care of this," he said firmly. "You make sure everyone knows to keep out for now, and call Tang Soso to came over as soon as she can."
"Yes, sabu!"
Once they were gone, Cheong Myeong turned his full attention towards a-Jiu. Who, if his suspicions were correct, was currently trapped in his memories; Some of the worst of them.
"A-Jiu," he called softly. A-Jiu's sword left massive gaps in his defence, but Cheong Myeong moved slowly, one step at a time. "It's okay, it's all over now. You're alright. You're free."
The other man bared his teeth in a snarl, excessive aggression trying to hide the fact that he was terrified. It hurt to see him like this. If Tang Soso detected any traces of poison in his body... Whoever did so wouldn't survive another hour.
But that was a matter for later. For now-
"Keep away!" A-Jiu rasped out, raising his sword. Cheong Myeong gently caught his wrist, letting him keep the weapon for now. His skin was burning hot, explaining the delirium. "Don't-"
"You killed him. You killed them all. You are free, Xiao Jiu."
He took a gamble there, but if a-Jiu was mentally back in the manor, then this might make him react better.
"...Qi-ge?" The sword arm went limp. Cheong Myeong caught the sword before it could drop to the ground, setting it down gently out of the way. A-Jiu seemed to loose his drive, leaning against Cheong Myeong, hands fisting into his robes. His forehead felt just as hot as his wrist had. "Qi-ge came back?"
"Ah-" What was he supposed to say now? "I'm here for you."
A fist thumped weakly aganist his chest. "Qi-ge's late," a-Jiu accused, face scrunched up into a pout. "Qi-ge better have a good reason!!"
Of course, a-Jiu would jump straight into the hardest question possible. Cheong Myeong couldn't answer it; Not when even a-Jiu didn't know the reason, left with nothing but speculations. But not answering at all would be a cardinal sin, so-
"I came as soon as I could," he assured. "I'll tell you everything I did while I was gone, alright? But let's get you inside first. We'll settle in, get you something sweet, all the good stuff. Okay?"
A-Jiu nodded, his eyes slipping closed. He let Cheong Myeong maneuver him inside, though taking off the outer robes was where he drew the line. Cheong Myeong let him keep it for now — Tang Soso could wrestle it off later, if she decided it was necessary — and directed him to sit down on the bed. With his motor skills nerfed, Shen Jiu dropped heavily, holding onto Cheong Myeong so tightly that he had no choice but to follow him down.
All he could do was catch himself on his hands to avoid putting too much weight on a-Jiu. His efforts were instantly ruined by a-Jiu wrapping his arms and legs around Cheong Myeong, clinging onto him so tightly, there was barely any space left between the two of them.
"Am I interrupting something?" A dry voice sounded from the entrance.
Cheong Myeong scowled, struggling to turn his head enough to direct it at Tang Soso. "Yes, please do. A-Jiu's running hotter than a furnace, and is also turning into an octopuss, evidently. I could use some assistance here."
Tang Soso didn't waste any more time, approaching the bed and repossessing one of a-Jiu's wrists, to which he responded with unintelligible grumbling.
"So?" Cheong Myeong asked after a while. "What's the verdict, doc? Am I about to have to murder a wanna-be assassin?"
"No, it's not poison." Tang Soso stepped away from the bed, using the nearby tea service to start preparing something. "He fell sick naturally."
A-Jiu, falling sick? He hasn't seen the man with as much as a cough or a runny nose for all the years they've known each other. And now he randomly got feverish enough to fry an egg on his forehead?
Some of his scepticism must have shown on his face, because Tang Soso continued with her explanation. "I've heard of such cases before, but I haven't had the chance to see any until now. It is said that, when a person lives under constant stress and anxiety, their bodies just... Put some illnesses on hold. It's not safe to be vulnerable, so they aren't. But when they get out of that dangerous situation, when they're somewhere safe, it all comes back at once."
"Ah."
If that was the case... A-Jiu's body must have been making up for decades of backlogged sick days. No wonder his body was having some difficulty burning through all that.
"All we can do is just help him get through it." Tang Soso brought over a cup, kneeling by the side of the bed. "Get him up, I need him to drink this."
What followed was a small infinity of slowly trying to get a-Jiu to sit up. Cheong Myeong ended up halfway underneath him, a-Jiu leaning against his chest and appearing very disgruntled at the mere idea of there being more than an inch of space between them.
With their concerted efforts — and Tang Soso's assurances that, yes, it was Qi-ge helping him drink it — they got the medicine into a-Jiu. And with that success, arose another problem.
A-Jiu sputtered, disgusted, though he had already swallowed the medicine and, as such, was unable to spit it out.
"Bitter!" He complained, pushing at Cheong Myeong and forcing him aside. "Betrayal! Go away, Qi-ge!"
"Alright, alright," Cheong Myeong almost tumbled off the bed. "I'm going, you don't have to push me!"
This might have been the better outcome, really. They could hardly keep cuddling the entire day, and with a-Jiu being feverish it couldn't have felt good for him, either...
But he looked so sad, curling in on himself in the bed and pulling the robes tightly around his body in a poor facsimile of a hug, Cheong Myeong couldn't stand it.
"Stay with him for a moment?" He asked Tang Soso, but didn't wait for an answer before dashing away.
He made it to the kitchens and back in a record time, bringing back a small selection of pastries and a sweet juice. It wasn't much, but it was a suitable peace offering. By the time he returned, Tang Soso have moved to sit on the edge of the bed, petting a-Jiu's hair. She got him out of the outer robes and under the blankets, somehow.
A-Jiu's glare was already a little more lucid.
"You're not Qi-ge," he accussed.
"Nope," Cheong Myeong said easily, not adding that he's never claimed that identity. "But I brought you some sweets. Your mouth must be feeling really yucky after the medicine, doesn't it?"
He let a-Jiu chew on that while Cheong Myeong went to drag a low table closer, setting down the tray with food. When he straightened up, a-Jiu was looking at him suspiciously.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Cheong Myeong. Rings any bells?"
"Annoying," a-Jiu concluded after a moment. "But safe. Fine, I'll accept it."
"Wow, thank you for your generosity- ah, careful!" Cheong Myeong rushed to brace a-Jiu as he tried to sit up and nearly slid off the bed entirely.
Tang Soso used that opportunity to trap Cheong Myeong within Shen Jiu's tight grasp again, herself dancing out of reach.
"Well, I'll be off," she announced. "I'll have some disciples loitering nearby, so just yell if anything changes. Bye!"
Cheong Myeong decided to just give up. He reached with his foot to scoot the table a bit closer, grabbing the gourd of juice first.
"Here," he handed it to a-Jiu, keeping his hand close in case he dropped it. "It's some sweet juice. To wash the taste away."
A-Jiu accepted the bottle, but squinted up at Cheong Myeong suspiciously.
"Sweet?"
"Yes."
"Not tricking Xiao Jiu?"
"No trick, honest."
Satisfied with that interrogation, a-Jiu brought the gourd to his lips, taking a cautious sip. Then, once he confirmed the taste, he drank more.
"It's plum," he said.
Cheong Myeong didn't actually know that; He just asked for the sweetest one they had. "You like it?"
"Xiao Jiu likes plums," a-Jiu nodded. "They're important."
It was sweet to see a-Jiu remember some aspects of Mount Hua, even when his brain scattered his memories like petals on a spring breeze.
He helped a-Jiu eat some pastries, after which a nap was in order. Except that, as much as a-Jiu clearly wanted to use Cheong Myeong as a pillow, he kept wriggling around and pushing himself off before climbing back on again.
Finally, he rose on his elbows. "It's too warm to cuddle!" A-Jiu lamented.
"And whose fault is that?" Cheong Myeong asked the furnace-wannabe with a reasonable level of incredulity. Then, seeing the scrunched up face and tears welling up in a-Jiu's eyes, he sighed. "Fine. I'll fix this for you."
He quickly tied his hair up into a tight knot on top of his head, and then tried getting out of the bed, only to get stopped by a-Jiu's iron grip.
"...a-Jiu, you're gonna have to let me go for a moment."
"Can't leave!" A-Jiu stubbornly pressed closer, pushing his face against Cheong Myeong's back. "Qi-ge left and didn't come back, and then didn't explain! Myeong-ge's going to leave and then not come back, and Xiao Jiu's going to be all alone!"
Now, how to explain object permanency to a guy whose brain was attempting to boil itself?
Cheong Myeong grabbed a hard candy, offering it to a-Jiu. "Look, put this candy in your mouth, and I'll be back before you eat it. Deal?"
"Qi-ge promised to come back, too," a-Jiu refused to take the candy.
"I'm not making a promise, I'm telling you a fact," Cheong Myeong tried. He unwrapped the candy, pressing it against a-Jiu's lips. The temptation was clearly too great then, and he accepted it. "Suck on it as hard as you want, I'll still be back before it's gone."
The challenge did its job. Cheong Myeong rushed outside, shedding his clothes quickly. The disciples Tang Soso promised to send should have known to look away, but Cheong Myeong still left one last layer on before waddling into a-Jiu's Cold Pond. It was technically not supposed to be for swimming but, when talking about technicality, Cheong Myeong wasn't actually swimming. It was the closest body of cold water, and he was on a bit of a time limit; The lotuses would cope with his brief presence!
He stayed in for just a moment. Then, he clambered out, shook the water off like the dog his sahyoungs sometimes called him, and put on the inner robes, grabbing the outer ones only to drop them somewhere out of the way inside of the house.
"See? I'm back!" He told a-Jiu, getting back into bed. "And you still have the candy, don't you?"
A-Jiu visibly swallowed the candy before pouting in a very dramatic fashion.
"The candy is gone!" He declared. "Myeong-ge has to make it up by cuddles!"
"Yeah, that was the whole point," Cheong Myeong grumbled, but let a-Jiu manhandle him into a comfortable position, settling on his chilled chest with a satisfied huff.
The next few hours passed relatively uneventfully. A-Jiu mostly dozed off, but when he didn't... One time, he demanded that Cheong Myeong brush out his hair, though he wouldn't let him go get the brush. So Cheong Myeong ended up just petting his head, the way Tang Soso was doing before.
Another time, Cheong Myeong got lost in his thoughts, staring off into space. He only came back out when a-Jiu squished his cheeks, coming extremely close to him.
"What are you doing?" Cheong Myeong asked, the words muffled by the way his lips were forced to purse out.
Shen Jiu started crying.
Panicking slightly, Cheong Myeong leaned up on his elbows. "What's wrong? Is something hurting? Do I need to call-?"
"I can't paint you!" A-Jiu wailed. Cheong Myeong paused, blinking slowly.
"...What?"
"Your eyes! They're too pink! I don't have a pigment intense enough to paint them!"
Relieved, Cheong Myeong dropped back down onto the mattress. The absurdity of the situation caught up to him, making him giggle uncontrollably.
A-Jiu wore that one expression, the one he always put on when he decided Cheong Myeong bullied him too much. "It's not funny! It's a serious problem!"
"My apologies," Cheong Myeong offered, faux-seriously, but he couldn't actually stop laughing. "I'll help you find a proper pink paint, how about that?"
With a huff, a-Jiu settled down, digging his chin into Cheong Myeong's sternum.
"Fine," he said, the tone indulgent, as if he was doing Cheong Myeong a favour. "That's alright, then."
It was truly fascinating to hear these kinds of unfiltered thoughts from him.
The night passed slowly, with a-Jiu waking up frequently. Cheong Myeong dozed off a little, but the way a-Jiu dug his nails into him whenever he woke up and panicked about not being able to see him wasn't really conductive to sleeping.
A little Shh, it's okay, I'm here was usually enough to get him back to sleep again.
A-Jiu seemed to drop into a deeper sleep shortly after dawn, once it became light enough to see properly. Cheong Myeong had carefully disentangled himself.
He rushed to quickly use the bathroom and grab another tray with food before heading straight back, hoping to return before Shen Jiu awoke.
Unfortunately, once he entered the room, a-Jiu was already awake. Even more unfortunately he seemed to have broken out of the fever's throes.
"I'm back," Cheong Myeong still announced.
"Who cares," a-Jiu sniffed, running a brush through his hair where he sat at the table.
"Well, you seemed to care quite a lot," Cheong Myeong reminded him, setting the tray down. "Couldn't let your Myeong-ge go-"
A brush sailed towards him, and Cheong Myeong ducked.
"I don't know what you're talking about," a-Jiu refused to look at him, but his cheeks were visibly red, so he likely remembered what had happened over the last day.
Good; It would have been less fun to tease him about something he couldn't remember.
Cheong Myeong retrieved the brush, coming over to stand behind a-Jiu. "Does a-Jiu want his hair brushed? It seems to have gotten a bit messy."
Must have been all that rolling in bed. Come to think about it, maybe Cheong Myeong should have braided it for him...
"Very well, I'll allow it," Shen Jiu magnanimously agreed.
Cheong Myeong grinned, getting to work. Sick or not, a-Jiu was always the same bratty self, and Cheong Myeong never wanted him to change.
"Myeong-ge promises to do a-!"
Smack!
...In a large part because it was so easy to tease him.