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“He is going to need ample rest and warm fluids at regular intervals. Make sure to warm the medicine to the right temperature before he drinks it.”
Liu Mu had carried Lu Xuechen’s ice cold body in his arms as they traversed slowly through the thick snow, fear gripping his heart like a vice at the invisible clock ticking and hovering just above him, mocking him for his uselessness.
He had entrusted Huo Dao to bring Luo Lingyu to get treated as well, the woman having lost consciousness the moment they identified the faint pulse on Lu Xuechen.
“Don’t worry, Miss Luo,” he whispered to her before they set off back to camp, tucking the blanket around her small frame. “I’ll keep him safe, just rest now.”
In hindsight, perhaps he should have brought Xuechen to his own tent where he would be the most familiar, but time was of the essence and all he could think of was how his tent was the biggest and warmest in the entire camp, how the barely-there breaths softly blowing against his neck grew even fainter as he huddled him close, trying to will his body to warm the other’s.
But as the physician left with instructions that entered one ear and the next (he trusted that Huo Dao had them noted), Xuechen’s too-still body piled under thick blankets, Liu Mu realized that it didn’t matter.
Lu Xuechen can whine and complain all he wants—after he gets better.
He sat beside him on the bed and gently raised the arm wrapped tightly in a splint, slipping it inside the blanket, being careful not to put too much weight onto it.
A broken arm, the doctor had said, he was lucky that the tendons hadn’t been severed. Just a few months of rest and it should be healed just fine.
Some time later, a cough resounded behind him. “Dianxia…”
“How is Miss Luo?”
“She’s being treated for her frostbitten hands and dehydration, and for the wounds from earlier that got reopened…but the doctor said she should be back in shape in a week or so.”
“…That’s good.”
He felt the weight on his shoulders lighten just a little, his chest no longer feeling as suffocated as it had the moment they received news that someone had abducted Miss Luo yet again, Xuechen rushing into the lion’s den without a single regard for himself.
“I’ll come check her myself in a bit. Go take a rest. It has been a long day.”
“…But Dianxia, you also need to re—”
“Huo Dao.”
Huo Dao shuffled a little before sighing, the flap of the tent as it closed the last thing he heard.
With a sigh that came from deep inside his core, Liu Mu allowed himself to forget about dignities and poise and let his face fall into his palms as he closed his eyes, all the fear accumulated over the last couple of days so massive he feared it would consume him whole and never let him escape its maws.
Ten years of leading troops into war, ten years of losing people he cared for and trusted with his life…yet nothing had prepared him for this.
He remembered the disappointment he felt when Xuechen had suddenly withdrawn from the enlistment, avoiding him at every turn when he tried to talk to him.
He remembered looking back as the troops left the city gates, a glimmer of hope that he’d at least see him one last time…
…but of course, it was all for naught.
He didn’t understand—wasn’t becoming a general and a hero their shared dream? Didn’t they promise to fight side by side together? Just because his father had been labelled as a traitor didn’t mean Xuechen too would be known as one, and Liu Mu couldn’t understand why Xuechen had looked at him even worse than when he had accidentally broken his favorite sword, refusing to talk to him ever since.
Besides…he didn’t believe in their words anyway. Uncle Lu had been his role model growing up—there was no way he would ever betray their beloved country like that.
But what would come to pass had already come to pass, and as more and more lives of his soldiers were taken around him, a part of him couldn’t help but be somewhat relieved that Xuechen was safe somewhere in Yuezhou, that even if he had never replied to his letters, he knew he was alive and well back home.
Liu Mu tilted his head just so, enough to give him a glimpse of Xuechen’s profile from the corner of his eyes. His heart clenched.
Too still. He was much too still.
He suddenly remembered Xuechen teasing him just a few days ago—
“But I’ve managed to stay unscathed. Maybe you’re just not skilled enough, A-Jiao.”
He wondered if Xuechen was aware of every single time he had blocked a fatal blow meant for him, the tiny openings he didn’t even know were more than enough for the enemy to strike. While the man had an extraordinary array of martial arts skills and was his equal in many aspects, there was one thing he was short of: experience on the battlefield.
Liu Mu had—in his selfishness to have him close—immediately accepted his request to become his advisor. He was so confident in both Xuechen’s ability to hold his own and his own ability to cover for his inexperience.
Yet now, as he watched Lu Xuechen’s eyelashes tremble, lips so pale he looked closer to a corpse than a living person, he couldn’t help but feel a tiny seed of regret settle heavily in his stomach.
But he shook his head.
No. They wouldn’t have won without his help. This…this was beyond the battlefield, beyond the external struggle between Beichu and Nanyue. This was personal. And now, both Lu Xuechen and Luo Lingyu were safe with that person confirmed to be dead, his frozen corpse somehow unearthed by one of his soldiers as they regularly checked the perimeter.
He really should have skewered him where he stood back then.
(Now that was one regret he didn’t mind having.)
A few weeks later…
Lady Luo, having suffered through bedrest long enough, started regularly visiting Lu Xuechen whenever she could.
He had offered to bring him back to his own tent so she could feel more comfortable whenever she would fall asleep on his bedside, but she shook her head, a small, tired smile adorning her beautiful face.
“Dianxia was wise to place him here. Your tent is much more conducive to his healing than his, it would have slowed down his initial recovery even more.”
She had subtly asked where he slept whenever she did visit, but he couldn’t just tell her that he would simply take a stroll outside of the perimeters of the camp and not sleep at all. She had enough worries as is, and Liu Mu had no intention of adding even more onto her plate.
The relief he felt when Xuechen finally woke up eclipsed the feeling he had after winning the most gruesome battle in the last ten years. As expected, the man had immediately complained about being so far from his beloved, demanding to be put back in his own tent and even dared to ask: “Why not give your tent to me?”
He was halfway to agreeing when Miss Luo piped in, stopping the other man from spouting more nonsense.
“Now that he’s well enough to complain, I believe our tent is big and warm enough for his recovery. And besides, you’d be more comfortable there, wouldn’t you say?” she said with a smile.
He was about to tell her that the man looked just as comfortable sleeping on his bed even before all this when he realized how strange that would sound, so he ended up saying nothing.
She was right after all—Xuechen was fit enough to return to his room now.
Imagine his surprise when the man somehow found his way back to his bed, struggling to pull his outer robes off.
“Xuechen?” He blinked. “What are you-”
Finally noticing him, the man broke into a big relieved grin, beckoning him closer.
“A-Jiao! There you are. Come, help me out of my clothes. This splint is such a headache to work around…”
As he spoke, he attempted yet again to wriggle out of his left sleeve to no avail, his right hand stuck inside the bandage to do much to help. He suddenly winced, no doubt having pulled something by accident and Liu Mu immediately rushed to his side, clicking his tongue.
“You’re such a fool. Where’s Miss Luo? Couldn’t you have asked for her help before bothering me?”
He gently supported his bandaged arm and carefully pulled the fabric out from under it, working on the other arm as the man let out a sigh of relief having been freed of his self-made constraint.
“A-Yu hasn’t had a good night’s rest ever since I woke up, so…I thought I’d let her rest from taking care of me for a bit.”
Liu Mu snorted. “It’s good that you’re self-aware. Do you even know just how often she would fall asleep next to you while sitting up? That I had to convince her to at least sleep in a more comfortable position before she damaged her neck tendons?”
His words were met with a solemn silence, and Liu Mu couldn’t help but wish he had been a bit kinder seeing the guilt flooding Xuechen’s face at his words.
“…Don’t look so down,” he grumbled. He never could stand to see Xuechen like that—it was the reason he had climbed that huge tree when they were little just to save the little birds the other boy adored so much, how it was worth it just to replace that pitiful, tearful frown with his blinding smile. “We were all worried about you, so it’s normal to lose a little bit of sleep.”
“Oh?” He knew that tone, and he knew he was going to lose against Xuechen yet again. He could see his stupid grin even without seeing his face. “‘We’, hm? Did you lose sleep over me too, A-Jiao ah?”
He didn’t deign him with an answer, instead roughly pulling his limbs out of his inner robes, smirking as the man yelped.
“Careful, careful! What would A-Yu say if she sees me all bruised up tomorrow, huh? Are you willing to risk her wrath?”
He was about to retort that she probably wouldn’t mind having to deal with more of his clinginess when he froze, wide eyes drawn to the scars on Xuechen’s back.
There were two distinct indentations anyone with enough experience would immediately be able to tell came from arrows—one was slightly more faded than the other, and he knew exactly which wound was put there by his own hands.
“…”
Lu Xuechen must have noticed the shift in the air, his voice hesitant when he called out: “…A-Jiao?”
Liu Mu swallowed, his throat suddenly drier than the desert. He traced his finger lightly over the scar, barely touching skin as he murmured:
“It was you that night. You…”
He could physically see when tension pulled Xuechen’s back taut, his muscles tensing under his fingers as he shrunk away from him. He felt his own heart clench painfully in his chest as a thin laugh was pulled out of Xuechen, the man clearly running back behind the walls he had painstakingly pulled down himself these last few months.
But all of a sudden, all the tension left his body in a single, long sigh.
“…That’s right,” he then said simply, his voice quiet.
Silence filled the air between them, no longer as comfortable as it was before, yet all Liu Mu could think about was how the arrow had pierced deeper than he had calculated, and the wound, despite being treated by someone who might as well be a field surgeon, was still an angry crater of dark red amidst pale, unblemished skin, no longer tender yet still raw enough to see exactly where the arrowhead had been painstakingly pulled out of his flesh, the mangled edges stitched together and already faded.
Liu Mu suddenly found it hard to breathe, thumb grazing over the wound over and over as though branding it into his mind forever.
“A-Jiao.”
That nickname he so loved, spoken so softly, immediately broke his stupor, his heart skipping a beat just like it did that one sunny day, Xuechen’s smile as radiant as the sun itself when he finally called him by that name again after much too long.
The man tilted his head towards him, yet all he could see were his long lashes from the side of his face. He desperately wished he could see his expression, yet a part of him also feared it would undo him instead.
“For the record…” Xuechen said after a while, voice still barely louder than a whisper, “I don’t blame you. At least…not then, and definitely not after.”
“...” Liu Mu wanted to argue back, that he should have been more angry at him from the moment he told him those awful words about his father, that he was right to avoid him back then. But he didn’t trust his mouth not to accidentally hurt him yet again like he did all those years ago. So he kept his mouth shut.
“It’s all in the past anyway,” Xuechen shook his head. “Besides, how did you know it was me right away? I thought I disguised myself pretty well.”
“I…recognized your figure.”
A soft chuckle answered him. “Is that so? We haven’t seen each other in a decade and I’m pretty sure I’ve grown taller, yet you still managed to recognize me?”
I’d be able to recognize you anywhere no matter how much time flies, he didn’t say. No reason to give the man even more leverage against him, the bastard.
“…Hmph. Like your height is anything to be proud of.”
Laughter rang around them like bells, and before he even knew what was happening, his arms were suddenly full of Xuechen. He carefully supported the other man when he leaned back without warning, his back was now plastered to his chest as he continued laughing, eyes crinkling in that happy, fond way he could never say no to.
Heart thundering in his chest, Liu Mu realized with a sudden sharp ache just how much he had missed this particular closeness they both had. His hands hovered hesitantly before curling around his torso, just like when they were kids and Xuechen would cling to him in his sleep, effectively preventing him from moving too much and accidentally kicking him off of his bed. He always was such a clingy child, and from the way he clung to Luo Lingyu at every possible moment…it seemed that he never did grow out of it.
Liu Mu spent exactly one second holding himself back before letting his forehead drop to the other’s shoulder, squeezing the man gently, if only to make sure he really was there.
He felt Xuechen’s cheek resting against the top of his head and let in a shuddered breath.
Xuechen was alive. Miss Luo was safe. They all survived another day.
That was all that mattered.
“Ah…if only your men knew how our A-Jiao is such a softie at heart,” he heard him say in a singsong voice, patting his head in that annoying way when he knew Liu Mu would feel too content to push him away like he usually would.
Whatever, he thought with a huff. Miss Luo had him all to herself every other day…he’d let him off the hook and indulge him longer, just this once.