almach

Title: keep the tension in the line
Fandom: Modao Zushi/The Untamed
Pairing: Xue Yang/Xiao Xingchen
Rating: R
Length: 1174 words
Content notes: (skip) Manipulation, forced dependence/malevolent caretaking, violence, murder (of an unnamed side character), necromancy. Basically canon-typical Xue Yang behavior.
Summary: It’s important to Xue Yang that Xiao Xingchen’s skills don’t atrophy.
Author notes: Related to the prompt via the saying “keeping one’s cards close to one’s chest”.

“Quiet,” Xue Yang says, pressing a kiss to Xiao Xingchen’s cheek in the dark. Both of them are laughing under their breath, curled up together in the narrow bed, Xue Yang’s arm wrapped around Xiao Xingchen’s slim waist from behind.

They rarely go any further than this. The mess and the noise wouldn’t be worth it; the press of their bodies in the dark is enough. Xiao Xingchen can bear a great deal of pain in perfect silence, but pleasure is harder for him to stay quiet about.

Xue Yang presses his face into Xiao Xingchen’s black hair and inhales deeply. “I was worried about you,” he says. It’s not a lie.

Xiao Xingchen scoffs at him, but it’s an affectionate sound, a warm sound. “There’s no need for you to worry.”

“I can’t help it,” Xue Yang says. He runs his good hand up the front of Xiao Xingchen’s body, fingers catching in the folds of his robes, lingering with light pressure on the soft underside of his jaw, finally coming to rest with the pad of his thumb on the scab where Xiao Xingchen’s lip had split. He presses there too, not hard enough to reopen the wound, but hard enough to make sure Xiao Xingchen knows he’s touching him there on purpose. References can bridge speech and action. “How could I not worry?”

“It’s fine, really—”

“Daozhang, let me help.”

Xiao Xingchen finally relents, dropping his hands into his lap and letting Xue Yang wipe the blood from his face. He tucks his chin demurely as he sits there, as if there’s something vaguely embarrassing but obviously unavoidable about letting himself be tended to, and Xue Yang leans into it, plays his role, considers that there is a situation that they are playing out the opposite of. Two women, before an event, one applying red to the other’s face. Two men, after an event, removing it.

For the entire trip back to Yi City after the hunt, Xiao Xingchen’s split lip had been bleeding, drip drip drip onto his robes, and—

—why hadn’t he done anything about it? We should get back before sunrise so A-Qing doesn’t worry, he’d said, but it wouldn’t have taken that long to stop and tend to it. The sun wasn’t that close to breaching the horizon.

It should’ve clotted on its own, but—

—well, maybe it had. Maybe his body was trying to seal the edges of the cut but he preferred smiling at Xue Yang’s jokes over letting his own flesh knit itself back together. (If you talk, I start laughing, he’d said so many months ago, but he couldn’t be that easy to entertain, could he? No, he must have been making himself vulnerable on purpose. And Xue Yang, of all people, knows how effective that can be.)

Xue Yang had watched him the whole time, and with every red drop, he’d thought to himself, Now I understand how animals feel.

A-Qing brings them a basin of fresh water and a clean cloth. Xue Yang thanks her.

One lucky strike, that’s all had taken. How fortunate that Xiao Xingchen’s face had met with the hilt of the dagger instead of with the blade. Otherwise, it would have been very bad. Otherwise, he would look very different now. Otherwise, Xue Yang would be putting together the pieces. It’s not a wholly unpleasant thought—holding Xiao Xingchen’s face together, carrying him home—but it would be too much, too soon. It would cause more problems than it would solve, and for once in his life, Xue Yang isn’t interested in doing that.

He smiles to himself as he presses the wet cloth firmly to Xiao Xingchen’s lower lip. I hope you’ll be more careful next time, daozhang, he thinks.

He doesn’t have to say it out loud, because the world has already said it for him.

Dawn breaks over Yi City like a rotting fruit, and Xue Yang is already gone. In the forest, he finds a lone hunter crouched over a small fire and slits his throat. The man’s blood sprays into the flames, droplets hissing as they land on the burning wood, and for one brief moment, the air smells like a banquet.

When the man stops gurgling and twitching—when the light leaves his eyes—Xue Yang’s real work begins.

There’s no need to cut this body’s tongue out. After all, this one is actually dead.

Xue Yang does it anyway, out of habit.

How hard is it, to create a corpse strong enough to land a hit on Xiao Xingchen?

Not so long ago, the answer would’ve been ‘very’. Xiao Xingchen is not a legend, but he’s respected. Not everyone knows his name, but those who do know it speak it with reverence.

Xue Yang has no proof that the answer has changed. But every blade needs to be sharpened; every skill needs to be trained; every roof needs to be patched. He has been feeding Xiao Xingchen a steady diet of soft food, and it has recently occurred to him that it’s probably best for everyone’s sake to periodically ensure he still remembers how to chew.

Before he leaves the forest, he presses a cheap old dagger into the corpse’s hand, making sure it faces the wrong way around, lopsided pommel sticking out from between its thumb and index finger.

When he returns, several hours later and several items lighter, Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing have started their day, filling their little home with the sounds of family. Despite the fog, the sound carries, and by the time he gets to the house, he’s already heard a fair bit of their conversation. It’s nothing specific—aimless good-natured pestering from A-Qing, quiet laughter and gentle admonishment from Xiao Xingchen—but it’s precisely that insignificance that puts a smile on his face as he steps inside. Who would have thought that he, Xue Yang, would find someone to settle down with?

“Where were you?” A-Qing asks, swatting at his ankles with her bamboo stick.

Xue Yang folds his arms across his chest and leans against the wall. “Out,” he replies. “Not all of us get to laze away the whole morning in—” he pauses for the briefest moment, gaze darting to the coffin where she sleeps, “—bed.”

Xiao Xingchen raises an eyebrow at that, forehead shifting behind the pristine white blindfold, but he doesn’t tell him off or inquire further. “The woods are dangerous at night,” is all he says.

“They’re dangerous in the daytime, too,” Xue Yang points out. Neither of them can argue with that.

In three days’ time, he will accompany Xiao Xingchen into the forest for a night hunt, and it will go like this:

the hunter’s corpse, springing out of the bushes—

—Shuanghua’s blade, sinking silver-bright and whisper-quiet into its unbeating heart—

—the hilt of that crude iron dagger, connecting with Xiao Xingchen’s jaw—

—a cracked tooth, a split lip, red blood on white robes.

Xue Yang will clean up the mess.