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When Meng Yao woke up early one morning with a wet, disgusting cough, Nie Mingjue was a good boyfriend and didn't say I told you so. Four months into their three-way cohabitation and over a year into their mumble relationship mumble, he'd mostly trained himself out of the habit.
Instead, he got up, grabbed a COVID test, and came back to hand it off to Lan Xichen, who was soothing Meng Yao with a cool washcloth and soft words.
"It's nothing," Meng Yao insisted, voice gone gravelly from mucus. "I'll go sleep in the guest bedroom, it's fine."
"No you won't," Xichen murmured. "I think he's running a fever," he added to Mingjue.
Mingjue nodded. "I'll get the thermometer. Meantime, you want to swab him?"
"I think that might be a good idea."
"Ugh," Meng Yao groaned into Xichen's chest. Meng Yao despised nasal swabs with a fiery passion.
"I'll be gentle," Xichen promised him, and Meng Yao relaxed, just a little, because yeah, Xichen would be gentle.
Mingjue retrieved the thermometer and, as an afterthought, put on the kettle and the rice cooker and started making toast. Hensheng, Meng Yao's adopted (read: stolen from a Wen safe-house) grey Persian, left her basket by the heating vent to supervise, which was to say, she wound around his legs and made noises like an angry boat motor until Mingjue picked her up and put her on his shoulder like a parrot. He washed his hands thoroughly afterwards, because Wen Qing had once ruined his peace of mind by telling him things about toxoplasmosis that he'd never wanted to know.
Once everything was ready, he marched into the bedroom with a tray of food. "Breakfast," he announced, and set the tray down, and then Hensheng, who immediately went to loaf in Meng Yao's lap and started purring like a broken coffee grinder.
Xichen caught his hand and tugged him close. "Thank you," he said, and planted a kiss on the bridge of Mingjue's nose. "He's definitely running a fever," Xichen went on. "Temperature's 101.9 right now. He's tested negative, but it could still be influenza…"
"I'm fine," Meng Yao muttered. "Stop fussing." There was a pause. "Not you," he said to Xichen, "the cat."
"She's worried about you."
"That's just her face," Meng Yao said, and coughed up a gob of yellowish-green mucus trying to laugh. "She only looks like that," he heaved, "because her dissolute rake of a nephew has run off with her lady's maid and the silverware."
Xichen used the forehead thermometer again while Meng Yao was distracted. It came back with a temperature of 102.5.
They took him to the emergency room. Luckily, the wait was only a few hours, and the attending doctor, a handsome older woman with cornrows and and a strong Trinidadian accent, ran an efficient battery of tests on Meng Yao to rule out "anything viral or load-bearing", then came back and gave him a sympathetic look. "The good news is, your temperature is going down. Before I get to the bad news, can I ask what you do for work?"
"Legal counsel," Meng Yao grunted.
"He's a legal aid and community defense lawyer," Xichen said.
"Previously private practice," Mingjue added.
"Right," said the doctor serenely, "I thought so," and then launched into a polite but excoriating explanation of the effect of stress on the body, finishing up with, "I'm prescribing you two weeks of bed rest, and some time in nature if you can—"
"I cannot take two weeks off," Meng Yao said, snapping to attention pale and distraught. "The Bouchard hearing—"
"I've been texting with Xingchen, he's already offered to stand in for you," Xichen assured him. "It's just a preliminary voir dire, darling."
"But my—"
The doctor aimed an exaggerated frown at Meng Yao. "You want to come back here with a heart attack? Is that what you want? You're a lawyer. How would you feel if your client kept talking to the police after you told him not to?"
Meng Yao opened his mouth. Meng Yao shut his mouth. Then he said, glumly, "Point taken."
"You have a simple rhinovirus infection," the doctor said, magnanimous in victory. "Just the common cold. But you're completely run down. Your immune system and body need time to reestablish homeostasis, and even something small can throw you completely out of whack." She gave Mingjue and Xichen a knowing grin. "Between the two of you, you think you can look after him?"
"I think so," Mingjue said. "Zonghui's been pushing me to take some time off anyway."
"Good," she said. "You keep an eye on him, he looks like a handful."
"I'm going to kill Zixun," Meng Yao growled first thing next morning, a damp cool washcloth on his forehead and Hensheng lolling on his blanket-covered chest. "That absolute dunderhead, I told him to go home or at least wear a mask, but no, he had to hold the whole disclosure session in a hermetically sealed box while coughing on me…Hensheng, get off, you're heavy."
The cat, whose permanent expression was that of a coal baron whose only treasured daughter has just announced her intention to marry his penniless valet, did not budge, or respond, aside from starting to make biscuits in the blankets, right on top of Meng Yao's liver.
As soon as Xichen got out of the bed, Shuoyue pranced in, leapt into his vacant warm spot, and wriggled over to gaze at Meng Yao with enormous melting eyes. Mingjue sighed and got up to pull on a pair of sweats over his boxers.
Shuoyue was the newest addition to the household, a stately, pale-furred rescue greyhound that Xichen had been pining over for months. He'd done a load of courses and at-home supervision in order to be approved for ownership, and it had been love at first sight. The neurotic noodle beast unreservedly adored him, and vice versa. She was a beautiful dog, and very friendly, just needy as hell and anxious to boot. They'd only just gotten her to stop running away in terror from the local squirrel population.
Mingjue sighed deeply and picked Shuoyuo up under her haunches and chest, the way the vet had showed them, and put her on the floor. She slithered around him and scrambled back up to join Meng Yao in their bed again, and gave him a wounded look into the bargain.
"No dogs on the bed," Mingjue said sternly, and went to repeat the maneuver. Shuoyue pressed against Meng Yao's side and made a horribly pitiful noise, half tire squeal, half mournful howl.
And then Baxia stuck her head into the bedroom to see what the fuss was about.
"No," said Mingjue, steeling himself, and scooped Shuoyue up again and deposited her in the hallway, bodily blocking both dogs at the bedroom door. "I spent eighteen months training you not to get on people furniture," he said sternly to Baxia, who stared back at him, unruffled, "and now you," he pointed to Shuoyue, who tucked her tail and looked pathetic, "are going to confuse your sister about house rules again. It's bad enough that Xichen lets you on the couch!" Shuoyue whined. "Yes, I know the cat is on the bed! The cat is tiny, and also, on thin fucking ice."
Shuoyue turned around, very sadly, and began to trot away; then she paused and looked back hopefully. Baxia watched her, then Mingjue.
"I am dead serious about this," Mingjue insisted, trying not to feel like a jerk.
"Da-ge," Meng Yao said from the bed, "stop arguing with the dogs, they don't understand you well enough to appreciate your position. Come back to bed and drink your coffee."
Mingjue shut the door on Baxia and did just that. "You look like a supervillain," he said to Meng Yao, who was knuckling Hensheng's head.
"Oh, yes," said Meng Yao, "because Ernst Blofeld definitely wore L.L. Bean pajamas and boot socks."
"It's cute," Mingjue muttered, and pulled Meng Yao into his side, tucking his chin on top of his head. Meng Yao made only a token noise of protest before relaxing against him with a hoarse, resigned sigh.
So of course, two days later, Mingjue came back from a grocery run to find all three animals piled on top of a sleeping Meng Yao in their California king, which was only barely enough to hold Shuoyue (long) and Baxia (the size of a small couch).
Xichen—damn and bless him all at once—was taking pictures. "It's cute," he whispered to Mingjue, who glared at him in outrage.
The worst part was, it was cute. Baxia had put her enormous, shaggy head on Meng Yao's chest. Hensheng was curled up by his shoulder, eyes closed, purring in her usual halfway-to-a-growl. Shuoyue had tucked herself up by his legs with her snout shoved under one knee and her long comma tail occasionally giving a slow, sleepy thump.
"You're encouraging our dogs to delinquency," Mingjue said, aware he was looking at a lost cause.
"I'm afraid I am," Xichen agreed sweetly. "They'll be robbing grocery stores and vandalizing overpasses before you know it."
At that moment, a half-awake Meng Yao startled upright and sneezed, hard. Shuoyue immediately bolted at top speed, Hensheng startled away from him with an offended 'mrrp!', and Baxia, whose head had been in the blast radius, raised her head and gave him a long, meaningful stare while he rubbed his nose on his sleeve and blinked himself awake.
It took Mingjue a while to stop laughing long enough to clean the snot off Baxia's head. Xichen took pictures of that, too.
"I've persuaded Zixuan to institute a mandatory work-from-home-or-mask policy for employees who are ill or otherwise contagious," Meng Yao announced over lunch a week later. "Another step towards making Jinlintai less germ-infested."
"Have you been working from your tablet, A-Yao," Xichen asked mildly.
Meng Yao gave him an innocent look that reminded Mingjue awfully of Shuoyue. "No?"
"Alright. Well, Dr. Joseph suggested spending some time in nature," Xichen decided. "Let's get you bundled up and go for a walk together, hm?"
"Xichen," Meng Yao complained, "I am rested, I have never been more well-rested. I need to get back to work. I don't think there's been a half-hour stretch this past couple weeks where someone or something hasn't been cuddling me within an inch of my life."
Mingjue elbowed him. "Sounds like you're complaining about it."
"I'm—I'm really not," Meng Yao sputtered, dropping his eyes to the tabletop. "It's nice, it's just not sustainable."
Xichen's eyebrows rose. Mingjue looked at him, then said to Meng Yao, "Says who?"
"I can't let you coddle me," Meng Yao said stiffly, not looking up. "I've got to stay sharp. On top of things. Otherwise, how am I any use to anyone?"
Oh, shit, thought Mingjue, a sentiment he saw reflected in Xichen's eyes.
Then Shuoyue came over and stuck her head in Meng Yao's lap, staring up at him dolefully.
"You don't have to be 'of use' to anyone to be loved and valued," Xichen said gently. "Case in point: the dog."
"She's only doing that because I feed her," Meng Yao muttered, petting Shuoyue's velvety ear.
"I feed her," Xichen pointed out. "She likes you because you're hers. So does Baxia. And Hensheng, although it's a little hard to tell with you," he added to the cat, who was rubbing up against his leg and grumbling, "being as how you have just discovered that Great Aunt Gertrude has disinherited you in favor of your excessively bohemian younger sister."
"Oh," said Meng Yao, in a very small voice.
"You don't have to do anything," Mingjue said. Meng Yao and Xichen both gave him a long, pointed look. "Yeah, I know, that's rich coming from me, but I'm going to therapy about it."
Meng Yao reached over suddenly and squeezed his hand.
"I'm very proud of you for it," said Xichen warmly.
Because he was a good boyfriend, Mingjue did not suggest that Xichen or Meng Yao give it a try. Instead, he got up and pulled them both into a hug. "Get your boots," he said. "You're not back at work 'til Wednesday."
"I see exactly what you're doing," Meng Yao said in his ear, but he kissed his neck anyway. Xichen kissed him on the cheek and mouthed 'thank you' against his skin.
Life more or less went back to normal with Meng Yao's recovery, all of them run off their feet with work, family, work related to family, friends, and pets.
Then, a month later, a bad storm hit and their neighborhood's power went out. Being that it was the middle of January, this was the opposite of a good thing, as they discovered when Xichen woke them up to a frigid, grave-silent room, all insulated with snow.
"Right," said Mingjue, sitting up in bed, "everybody up, we're going into the basement. Time to use that wood-burning stove."
"You really are obsessed with that—" Meng Yao cut himself off with a terrified, muffled squeak. "Xichen," he said in a near-normal voice a moment later, "please tell me that thing on my leg is you."
"It's the cat, dearest," Xichen said.
"Not reassuring," Meng Yao said, but gathered the grizzling Hensheng up anyway.
A moment later, a lanky, ghostly form scrambled up onto the bedspread and slithered over to Xichen with a piteous whine. Then Baxia nosed her way into the room and heaved her furniture-sized bulk right onto Mingjue's legs, her eyes glinting unsettlingly in the dim light.
(He never had managed to confirm if she had some wolf in her or not. Probably not. But sometimes, he wondered…)
"Alright," Mingjue grunted, "I guess we don't need the stove after all, with these three chuckleheads around."
Meng Yao made a few morbid jokes about Hensheng planning to eat his corpse when he inevitably died of hypothermia ("She does look like a nineteenth century explorer contemplating the edibility of her cabin boy," Xichen agreed), but they settled in soon enough, and the heavy presence and smell of large dogs was offset by the welcome additional body heat.
In the morning, the dogs and the cat were still there, and the power was back. Meng Yao had snuggled up to Baxia in his sleep.
"I thought you said 'consistency was paramount in animal training', Da-ge," Huaisang gloated when he caught Mingjue reading on the couch, using the sleeping Shuoyue in his lap as a book bolster while Hensheng twined around his neck like a fancy lady's stole.
"I'm picking my battles. 'If he sends reinforcements everywhere, everywhere he will be weak'," Mingjue muttered without looking up, grateful that Grandfather had made him memorize the better part of The Art of War in middle school.
"You said it," agreed Huaisang, who as far as Mingjue knew had never memorized anything except miscellaneous escape routes. "I was worried, you know," he added gravely, and Mingjue looked up from his book with narrow suspicion. "You moving in with Er-ge and San-ge all in one go, and now all three of you have pets…don't look at me like that! I just thought you were moving fast. But I have to say, I think this whole thing," he gestured at the pile of animals in Mingjue's personal space, "really suits you!"
"We didn't move fast," Mingjue said defensively. "You make us sound like U-haul lesbians."
"You're not cool enough to be U-haul lesbians," Huaisang agreed. "More like Petsmart homosexuals."
Hensheng coughed up a disdainful hairball in response.
"Mm," said Mingjue, and scratched her between the ears. "My sentiments exactly."