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He heard somewhere, in the back of his mind, a voice saying “heart disease”. A reminder to himself, that he had missed it. Such an obvious thing, really. What a detective he was!
Curled into himself, a far cry from the man who seemed to always act with an odd level of grace and poise even when he was just watering his turnips, was Li Lianhua. On that hard surface that could hardly be called a bed, where Fang Duobing himself had condemned him, he fought against an enemy that only he could touch.
The ever-present slight smirk was gone, the space between his brows tight. Pain and anguish seemed to radiate from him, squeezing his bones together, grinding his insides towards nothingness.
Suddenly fearing the violent shakes would break him further, crack his bones and bleed him, Fang Duobing had his hands around the man before he could think. It was natural, drew him to act. Cold, he felt it enter his own skin upon the touch. Cold, icy, clammy.
“Get me blankets!”
He wished he could see the warm brown of Li Lianhua’s eyes.
But the man, even when wrapped in a thick blanket, tucked in his arms, seeking warmth from Fang Duobin’s body unconsciously, felt nothing like he had been. A stranger, almost.
Li Lianhua never seemed to care of his own life. Yet, he clung to it now, seeking for it in Fang Duobing even without realizing.
And somehow, it was Fang Duobing who did not want to let go.
It wasn’t just answers he was seeking. His heart knew, before his head did, what this man was. Who he was.
“Li Lianhua,” he would call out, many times, that night. If it was him seeking out the man, or trying to guide him towards himself, Fang Duobing wasn’t sure. But he kept calling the name, nevertheless.
The cold was not warmed by wine, not the blankets. Not when the air turned cold, when the room became dark as the candles burned out. Not when the two were left by themselves, Fang Duobing holding on, never letting go of the shivering frame between the covers.
There was a name there, from between Li Lianhua’s lips, but who he called out to was only known to whatever gods or spirits granted him a moment of rest. Then, a gasp, cut short by his air being strangled. Fang Duobing felt his insides twisting to the sound.
He held the aching form close to his own, needing to feel the breath there against his chest. There had been too many chances for him to feel someone so close without there being a breath left to their body. Fang Duobing did not want to, but he could imagine it now - the cold of Li Lianhua’s skin turning eternal, air never entering his chest again.
The thought was too fridghtening, too horrid, but so difficult to dispel from his mind. He could only act, as he always did, to correct such awful injustices.
He laid down the man once more onto the discomforting straws, tucking the blanket close in as he did.
Whatever cold he felt as he opened his robes, leaving himself only to his most innermost layers, was nothing compared to the internal icy chill Li Lianhua was suffering through. Shrugging off the top of his robe to expose his skin, Fang Duobing opened the cocoon where Li Lianhua lay, and slid there behind him.
“I’m sorry, Li Lianhua,” he whispered, the truth behind the words private to his heart.
The cold of Li Lianhua’s body clung to his clothes like a winter morning’s breath. Fang Duobing almost wanted to pat it away, replace it with fire, with heat of the sun. Melt away the ice and have summer again.
His arms wound around the rigid form with ease, underneath his arms, across his chest, to touch his collarbones. His leg crossing over the tightly drawn pair to rest on a hard ankle.
Fang Duobing would not let Li Lianhua win.
The coldness was his selfish way of leaving again, and Fang Duobing would reel him back by force. He would take that cold, melt it, heat it, burn it, if he had to. It would not win.
And surely enough, in the pitch blackness, where the moon still held its nightly empire in its grasp, the winter breath turned into a spring breeze. Ice of his muscles melted into sleep, tightly wound breaths into more pleasant dreams.
The morning sunlight crept in, and Fang Duobing laid the man out for the peaceful rest he should have been granted much earlier.
His hand lingered in Li Lianhua’s, the warmth a victory of justice.