Crimson and Clover

No Paths Are Bound - Part 4

Mei Nian Qing joins them in the middle of breakfast.

Without him, it was a quiet, sombre affair. His presence makes it even worse, because Xie Lian's mind is full of thoughts he's unwilling to speak of in the presence of anyone but San Lang. Those are dark thoughts, dangerous thoughts; thoughts born of the endless grey hour before dawn when comfort can't be farther away. They invoke the memories of his darkest hours.

He hoped to have shaken them off by now. Yet here he is, trying his best not to tremble in fear at the recollection of the nightmare dressed in white. It—he—changed him, irrevocably, and Xie Lian carries that change etched into his body, mind, and soul. It's the terror that hasn't let go of him, it's the pain and suffering he still feels sometimes as if the day on which it happened hasn't ended. It's in the smile he holds onto and turns into a shield he hides behind. It's in the silence on the road; deep, complete, deafening, one that makes one's hair stand on its end. It's in the uncertainty and the grief, in the memory of the nameless ghost mourned thrice over. It's in the panic he feels at the realisation it may happen again.

Were he to lose everything one more time, he fears he would never rise from it again.

"Gege?"

San Lang is looking at him. He always is, and the love shining in his eye grows ever larger. One person is enough, and Xie Lian has somehow earned the best and most important person of them all.

He smiles and tucks a strand of San Lang's hair behind his ear. "Yes?"

"I've been thinking," his husband says, pushing his breakfast around on the plate. He's hardly eaten anything. "You mentioned you cooked?"

Mei Nian Qing huffs, but when Xie Lian glances at him, he's staring at his plate as if it holds all the secrets in the universe.

"I did, yes. I might not be the best at it, but I know a little bit." Enough to honour the tradition his mother tried to uphold even after their world had fallen apart. He couldn't see past his own misery back then, and the realisation came too late. "Why do you ask?"

"I'd be honoured to eat a meal cooked by gege." San Lang smiles widely. Mei Nian Qing chokes and tries to fight a coughing fit that sounds as if it's about to tear his lungs to pieces. "I've been thinking we could raid the kitchen when we come back?"

"Come back?" Mei Nian Qing asks before Xie Lian can react. "Where are you going?"

"And what is it to you?" San Lang snaps, his smile gone. He's always been less than patient with anyone who isn't Xie Lian, but not to this extent. Xie Lian knows his husband well enough by now to realise how deeply unsettled and on edge he is. Frustration is a shadow that clings to his back and has sunk its claws into him with no intention of letting him go.

How Xie Lian wishes they had time to figure everything and render every single monster of their minds non-existent.

"Out of the three of us, I know best what His... the Emperor is capable of," Mei Nian Qing says, putting away his chopsticks and abandoning all pretences of being interested in the food laid out in front of him. "I thought I made that clear yesterday, but here you are, apparently willing to jump right into trouble you obviously want to avoid. I don't know if you're that reckless, or maybe simply that stupid, but all you've done so far is keep provoking him."

Xie Lian takes San Lang's hand and twines their fingers together. It's a simple gesture that wouldn't stop him if he decided to attack, but serves as a reminder of Xie Lian's unchanging, continuous presence by his side. Too often does San Lang look at him like he's expecting him to disappear without a trace at any moment.

Xie Lian doesn't know how to convince his husband he's staying forever.

"We're not going after Jun Wu, master," he says, hoping to keep two storms from colliding and knowing it's a futile endeavour. "Feng Xin wants to talk to us on neutral ground and I... I owe him that much."