Work Text:
Bai Yutang fell onto the table with a thunk, a light snore leaving his open lips as Zhan Zhao shared a smile with Linglong.
He rose from his seat. “I’ll get him to bed.”
Carefully, he lifted an arm and slung it over his shoulder, before feeling the weight in his arms suddenly lighten.
“Here, let me help you,” said Linglong from his other side.
Together, they half-carried-half-dragged Bai Yutang’s limp body to his room before carefully lowering him onto the bed. Linglong went to close the shutters while Zhan Zhao slipped off his shoes, placing them beside his bed. Once Linglong was finally done darkening the room as much as she could, Zhan Zhao had already tucked the blankets around Bai Yutang’s shoulders, letting his hand linger on his chest as the man continued to slumber, watching it rise and fall under his touch.
With a small sigh, Linglong sat on the opposite end of the bed, gently resting a hand on his exposed ankle, the sheets from the inn too short for his long frame.
They simply sat there, lost in their own thoughts, the quiet sound of Bai Yutang’s even breathing as he slept filling the space between them.
“I’m glad Bai-dage finally opened up to us,” whispered Linglong. “It must have been scary to do.”
Zhan Zhao nodded.
For 15 years this man had been keeping all this bottled up in his heart, a lone child abandoned by the world until he finally found people who he could call his real family. And even then, he did all he could to distance himself from the origin of his pain, the people that gave up on him and his brother still regarded as an upright family of medicine beloved by all.
He still didn’t know the details, his breaching of the other’s privacy the day before still uncomfortably snagging something deep in his chest, but they would let Bai Yutang tell them, piece by piece, little by little, until he would finally welcome them into his heart entirely.
“Alright,” Linglong finally rose, stretching as she did. “I’ll go ask the kitchen staff to prepare a hangover soup tonight for when he wakes up. Do you want anything too, Zhan-dage?”
Because I know for a fact you won’t be sleeping tonight, Linglong did not say, but the disapproval in her eyes, muted as they are, was more than enough to convey it.
Zhan Zhao’s penchant to stay up all night right before something major happens was something that Linglong could not pretend to ignore any longer, her subtle attempts at reminding him to rest always acknowledged but promptly ignored. After a while, all she could do was look at him with exasperation, trying her best to alleviate the burdens he put on his own shoulders the next day.
Zhan Zhao’s gaze lowered under her sad eyes, and he shook his head, a small smile teasing the edge of his lips.
“I’ll be fine, Miss Huo. But thank you for the offer.”
They stayed there a while longer until the sky turned to dusk, the sun’s dying rays casting a soft glow through the translucent shutters, dapples of light falling onto the wooden floor.
Together, they shuffled silently out of the room, Zhan Zhao closing the door as quiet as he could with a soft ‘click’.