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The night after Lin Shu came back, riding into Da Liang like he’d always meant to return, Jingyan dreamt again. He had this recurring dream, years old. It wasn’t based on a memory, but something his mind invented out of whole cloth. It had never happened when it could, and then it had passed into the realm of impossibility. Even as he dreamt, Jingyan could feel the ache in his throat that would accompany him on waking. Nevertheless, the dream was always welcome when it came, with its quiet unattainable intimacy.
In the dream it was always summer, hazy and hot, and the hanging scrolls tapped gently against the wall in the evening breeze. It took place in a room in the Lin manor, the doors open onto the garden beyond. The odour of the peonies drifted in with it, but faint in contrast to the smell of the oil slowly being worked into Jingyan’s hair. In waking life, one of the servants did this for him, a thorough working through of oil from the crown to the ends. In the dream, however, it was Lin Shu sitting behind him on a cushion, shins pressing to Jingyan’s hips, slowly dragging the comb down through his hair, tugging gently. One stroke, then another, and another, over and over again. Jingyan rocked into it just a little, closing his eyes as he tipped up his chin, sighing at the release of tension between each stroke of the comb.
Lin Shu never said anything, and Jingyan never saw more than a blur of fingertips, but in the logic of dreams he knew for certain that it was his dear friend who wielded the comb that shushed through his hair, down and down and down.
Sometimes the dream would go on long enough that Lin Shu would put the comb down and take up the ribbon to fasten Jingyan’s hair into a queue. Then came the slow weaving of the plait, a careful pull once and again, over and over. In the dream it lasted much longer than was possible in reality, as Jingyan tilted his head back and bared his aching throat. Finally the plait would fall heavy against his back and he would know that it was time to sleep now, that the dream was at an end.
Jingyan woke up, heartsore and full of longing. This time, however, he wasn’t alone in his bed. Lin Shu was asleep beside him, alive and if not quite well, on his way there. Jingyan stared at him: his carefully arranged limbs so at odds from the easy sprawl he would adopt to nap when they were young. Even if he didn’t look like Lin Shu, Jingyan knew that his heart beat true.
“Why are you awake so early,” Lin Shu asked, his eyes still closed, a small frown line between his brows. His face, familiar and dear, was unbearably handsome.
“It isn’t early,” Jingyan replied automatically, then shook his head because what did it matter? Early or not, today would be a day spent in Lin Shu’s company to the exclusion of everything else.
Lin Shu opened one eye, then both. His hand, lying open on the bed between them, reached out, tugging at a lock of Jingyan’s hair where it had escaped from its plait. It tickled his cheek and Jingyan leaned into the touch unconsciously.
Lin Shu smiled, without guile. “Would my emperor grant me a kiss?”
“Yes,” Jingyan said immediately, taking Lin Shu’s hand and folding it in his own, holding it close as he shifted forward to press their lips together.
Even though it wasn’t their first kiss – not even their first kiss since yesterday’s miracle return – it was still soft and tentative, as they parted and came back together in the grey morning light. They had time now, like they had never had even in youth, separated by their duties and then by so much more. There was no hurry. The sun began to make the horizon glow.
Lin Shu pulled his hand free from Jingyan’s grip, cupping Jingyan’s jaw instead, then pushing his fingers into Jingyan’s hair. It felt like the shadow of the dream, the ghost of the comb against his temple. Jingyan reached for the ribbons holding his hair in its plait, tugging on them until they came undone.
“You like this,” Lin Shu murmured against his jaw, the tone pleased as he always was when cataloguing something new. His fingers now combed the plait free; Jingyan couldn’t help but tilt his head into the sensation, even as it broke their kiss.
“Would you comb my hair for me?” The question came out thoughtlessly, almost on a gasp as remembered and real sensations blurred together for Jingyan. Lin Shu’s fingertips rubbed against his scalp then dragged through the length of his hair, and Jingyan clenched his fist in the bedcovers.
Lin Shu kissed his throat, right where it ached most. “Now?”
Suddenly it seemed like too much for Lin Shu to fulfil Jingyan’s dream like this. It felt more intimate than anything they had thus far done together, more revealing of Jingyan’s heart than even keeping Lin Shu in his bed.
“Never mind,” he said, pulse rushing in his ears.
Lin Shu didn’t stop, fingers still drawing through Jingyan’s hair steadily, over and over. “No, I will,” he said. “If my emperor wishes.”
But it couldn’t be that. In the dream they were equals, Lin Shu performing this task not out of duty but out of loyalty. Out of love. “And what if your friend wishes?” Jingyan asked, barely able to voice the question, such was the pain in his throat.
Lin Shu cradled the back of Jingyan’s head, tipping it down until he could look Jingyan in the eye again. He smiled just a little, a Mei Changsu smile, and kissed Jingyan again without asking permission. “My friend, my zhiyin, of course. The rivers of our souls spring from the same well, after all.”
The poetry knocked Jingyan breathless and it took long seconds for him to be able to reply, voice trembling a bit. “Two branches of one tree.”