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"I'm fine, I'm fine." Prince Jing stopped his hand halfway to his brow to wipe off the sweat that was forming there. "Please continue, Sir Su."
Far from dropping his gaze back to the papers in front of him, Mei Changsu looked at him more closely. Under the tan, his face was ghastly in the candlelight, and his fingers clenched white-knuckled on the edge of the desk. "I'm calling someone," Mei Changsu announced.
***
"He's been poisoned," Dr Yan said, some minutes later. "Believe me, I am sure," he added, as Jing attempted to sit up and protest. "I can treat it, but it's not going to be pleasant."
"Do it," said Mei Changsu, without even the pretence of waiting for the Prince's opinion on the matter.
"I intend to," said the doctor severely. "That wasn't my point." He glared. Mei Changsu continued to pace. Dr Yan sighed. "Out."
"But..."
"Out."
***
"How is it?" Mei Changsu asked, when the doctor had let him back in, and then, grudgingly, left him in possession of the room while he went off to brew something in the kitchen. Jingyan blinked up at him somewhat muzzily. "To be honest, I think I preferred the poison."
"I know the feeling," Mei Changsu muttered. Prince Jing stared at him. "Something of a professional hazard, in the jianghu. How do you think my physician is so familiar with the symptoms?"
"He seemed taken aback by the effects of the antidote, though. Perhaps it did not affect you in quite the same way."
"You don't have to tell me the details," Mei Changsu said, in some haste. "Dr Yan went to great effort to spare your privacy. This is a grace not often afforded to princes."
"I do, though," said Jingyan. "I can't stop myself. That seems to be the problem, actually. That must be why Dr Yan excused himself, in case I told him something he shouldn't know. He thinks I have no secrets from you."
"That is as it should be." Mei Changsu sat carefully on the edge of the bed and poured tea from the pot Dr Yan had left by the bedside. "Drink it. Or I'll have to call him back in again."
Somewhat to his surprise, Jingyan drank it without comment. "I wish you would do that more often," he murmured, handing the cup back.
"Make you tea? I thought you did not care for it," Mei Changsu said lightly. He poured another cup, for something to do with his hands, then turned to set it back on the table when Jingyan drank and gave it back again. Anything but look at the hectic flush, the lashes lowered against his cheeks..
"Not that. Though I've always wondered how you know that, when I never told you." Jingyan seized Mei Changsu's hand as he returned it to his lap; laced their fingers together. "When you tell me what to do. I wish you would tell me to kiss you. I wish you would tell me to stay still while you kissed me."
"Your Highness!" Mei Changsu startled half to his feet, pulling back. Jingyan tightened his grip on his fingers, though not to the point where it would have been hard to break.
"I watch your hands, Sir Su. When they're writing, when they're still. When they're tying knots in your sleeves. I imagine them, touching…"
Mei Changsu froze. "I can't. It would be taking advantage of a sick man. You are not in your right mind, Your Highness."
"You can't? Not that you don't want to?"
"I did not say that. Your Highness." Very, very casually, Mei Changsu nudged the teapot into the draft, so that the steam drifted away from him.
"Is it not taking advantage of my position to force you to listen to this?" Jingyan said miserably. "It is not an honourable thing to do to a man who has no choice. But I can't stop."
"No choice?" Mei Changsu looked him full in the face. "I have always had the choice." He sat back down on the bed, then leant forwards, and laid one finger of his free hand across Jingyan's lips.
"Jingyan. Be silent."
Jingyan's lips parted, as if to speak. Mei Changsu shook his head; the touch of his finger perhaps a feather's weight heavier. Jingyan's breath hitched; he swallowed, closed his eyes. Mei Changsu bent forward, and sealed Jingyan's lips with his own.