Archive of Our Own ^beta

General Geshu Lin knows that his men are avoiding him like the plague. He also knows it is the best goddamn decision they have made in a week. Hell, if he could get the damn chance, he would avoid himself! He has been in a foul mood, and anyone who dares to cross paths with him has heard of it. They should be happy, he has yet to reprimand any of them physically. The tacet discords around camp, on the other hand, have been faring a lot worse in his presence - those bastards get a taste of his anger every single night as if it is a blessing from the devil himself. He hasn’t exactly bothered to go out of his way to hide his nightly escapades. It probably explains why the entire camp has decided to walk on eggshells, some even going as far as hiding as soon as they hear that the general is on the move. Every single second he spends outside of his office, the entire personnel makes themselves scarce at top speed as soon as they spot even a hair of him - unless they don’t have the privilege. The war goes on, and soldiers must train and fight, whether the general looks murderous or not. If he wasn’t so goddamn pissed off at the world and everything in it, he would be impressed. They know that he doesn’t want to be disturbed by useless things and act accordingly for once in their lives.

There is only one man in the entire world who could bother him with anything, no matter how trivial, and live to tell the tale - and Geshu Lin would give a limb to see him walk through the door and start nagging his ear off for no apparent reason besides an injury smaller than a fucking papercut. No, he would give his life if it would change anything. Hell, he would burn down the entirety of Jinzhou and dance on its embers, but he knows that the other man cares deeply about the city, deeply enough to never forgive him should he raise his blade against it. Yet no matter what he is willing to do or give - has already done and given - Jiyan is still missing in action.

Rationally speaking, he knows that for the rangers it just means: there is no body to bury. His irrational side, however, won the war. He has forced the search to carry on - he would skin any soldier daring to tell him that it is foolish alive - even though it has been longer than a week already without a single sign of Jiyan. The camp has felt each one of those minutes as if they were stuck in a collective nightmare. They barely dare to breathe in the general’s direction at this point. He must admit - as much as it pains him - he has not been kind to any of them. On the contrary, he is undoubtedly the main reason some of them wake up in the middle of the night shivering with remnant fear, praying to Jué that Vice General Jiyan is returned to them safe and sound, if only to make General Geshu Lin see something else but red. 

He had threatened the entire group that had been out with Jiyan that fateful day: if they didn’t go back where they lost him and return with their Vice General alive and well, there wouldn’t be enough of them left to send them back home in a matchbox, he would personally make sure of that. If you ask him , he had held back for Jiyan’s sake and been as kind as the situation allowed. The fact that the men had left the camp shaking like leaves in an autumn storm, whiter than the snow that sometimes falls when winter comes, is entirely irrelevant. He can almost hear Jiyan’s voice chiding him in his mind, telling him that he had no reason to scare the poor unfortunate souls to the brink of a heart attack just because he is worried sick and too much of a bastard to admit it. He does admit it - to himself - and that is quite enough. There is no need for others to know the depth of the reason he is so goddamn angry at everything that dares to exist in his presence. They all know that it is because of Jiyan , but none of them should ever know that it is also because he knows that he would rather sacrifice the entirety of the city and the people he had sworn to protect with his life if only it meant that Jiyan would return safe and unharmed. If only he would be sitting on the corner of his table making plans about saving those he set out with instead of Geshu Lin sitting here alone, staring at nothing and losing his mind more and more the longer his right-hand man remains unfound. Oh, what he would give to have Jiyan here trying to wrestle him into a chair to tend to a wound that barely exists, or to nag him about whatever it is the general did wrong this time , he would dutifully listen to each word and, not even tease Jiyan afterwards. Oh, who is he kidding? He would tease with everything he has and love every single moment of it. The way Jiyan flushes, his skin tinting the most exquisite shade of red every time it happens. It just makes him want to chase the colour where it disappears underneath his clothes, to see how far it goes, how deeply he can make the other flush like a rose in bloom. He itches to trail its edges with his tongue like a man starving, but he knows that some things must remain improbable dreams and loving Jiyan is a job he must carry out in secret, with only his own heart in the know. 

He downs another glass of alcohol and slams it against the table hard enough to shatter it on impact, the shards cut into his hand and droplets of blood fall onto his desk. They even stain some of the paperwork set to be delivered to Jinzhou by the end of the week. Geshu Lin doesn’t give a single fuck. In his all-consuming rage, he swipes the rest of the contents off his table. The empty bottles crash against the floor in a cacophony of noise, all shattering into thousands of pieces, the papers slowly float until they too lay in the mess, soaking up the residue alcohol that had remained in the bottles. He doesn’t care, for all he cares, everyone demanding him to do paperwork when his right-hand man is missing can keel over and die. It would be more humane than what he would come up with should they dare to mention it to him right now. 

His eyes scan over the mess he made, and he sighs. Eventually, he will have to clean it up, perhaps when he is finally capable of feeling anything but this deep anger that makes him want to burn the entire world to the ground . He would want to see the idiot who would dare to say anything to him regarding the chaos in his personal office. He would. But Jiyan is Jué knows where, possibly injured, maybe even dead . Right now, he ain’t telling his general shit, no matter how bad it gets. He’ll get the dressing down he deserves when the man gets back, but until then, there is nothing much to do about it.

He hadn’t been kind. Hell, he hasn’t been nice or welcoming or any of those other pretty things to anyone for about as long as Jiyan has been away from the camp. A bit before that even. The last conversation between them had not gone well. He had said that he wasn’t Jiyan’s mother, that the man was a fucking Vice General, he couldn’t keep holding Geshu Lin’s hand and hiding his head in the sand, waiting for the ugly to pass. He needs to grow up and take responsibility for the men and their lives. He hadn’t been gentle in his words, and the barely noticeable hurt in Jiyan’s eyes had been enough of a proof that the arrow he intended to only graze had hit the mark way deeper. He had meant to light the fire that would extinguish the doubt gnawing in his heart, that endless fucking self-doubt that made him fear the what-ifs more than anything. They both know that Jiyan is on top of his game when he wants to prove something. He had demonstrated it repeatedly after all. But it seems that perhaps he dug too deep this time and caused hurt he never meant to. Geshu Lin rarely apologized, but he will most certainly make up for it in other ways than empty words. He will ensure that Jiyan knows that he is a capable fighter and leader. Even if he never says it out loud. It doesn’t make the reality any better, no matter how much he thinks about it or from which direction he looks at it, it is all still the same. If only he wasn’t missing, if only he still had a chance to fix the regrets plaguing him.

Geshu Lin would personally fistfight the Threnodian if it meant that Jiyan would walk in through that door and bandage his hand all the while nagging him about the dangers of infections and the effects scar tissue has on mobility and whatever else comes to his pretty mind. He would suffer through it all silently and then come up with a good enough way to ensure that he has made up for his words tenfold. 

With a low growl, he rises from behind his desk. His fingers curl around the hilt of his claymore, and he swiftly hauls it over his shoulder. He can’t possibly sit in his office like a lazy sloth and wait for the men who hadn't bothered to concern themselves with Jiyan's wellbeing in the first place to actually find him. Who knows if they are even trying hard enough? He could be sitting out there in who knows what kind of state, and they might not even care. No, this won't do. And well, killing something in addition to being useful wouldn't hurt either, especially as he will surely lose his mind in here otherwise. 

The glass shards crunch painfully under his boots, and the papers wrinkle as he walks all over them and exits the room. He doesn’t care that he ruined all of his painstaking work. Eventually, when there is nothing else on his plate, he will redo it - or bully Jiyan into helping him finish it when he is safely back where he is supposed to be. He will forgive him for it, he can’t hold a grudge to save his life after all. And everyone else? They can go to hell and take their pesky opinions with them. 

His steps echo through the empty hallways, and the knot in his chest clenches painfully at each thud his boots make. The absence of another pair accompanying his own is painful to bear. He does his best to ignore it. General Geshu Lin does not feel whatever the fuck it is that makes his eyes sting and chest hurt when he lays in his bed at night and thinks of all the hours that have passed without him. When his mind keeps creating scenarios out of thin air that could spell certain doom for his Vice General. Those thoughts haunt him even when he isn’t sleeping. Rationally speaking, he knows that he has forced his soldiers to search for way longer than protocol dictates. Irrationally, he also knows that he will stop at nothing until his right-hand man is back where he has to be. No one but Jiyan himself - dead or alive - could convince him to give up.

***

He returns empty-handed a few hours before sunrise and falls back into his chair like an empty sack of potatoes, his ruined office utterly silent around him. Exhaustion is clear on his face, as he leans his head back and closes his eyes for a moment. He had covered a great amount of ground, slaughtered so many TDs that he could fill a small ravine if he piled all of them on top of each other. Every single one that dared to get in his way had fallen under his blade, and yet he still had nothing to show for it. He had kept an ear out for rogue frequencies that could be any indication of Jiyan’s location. Hell, he had called his name until his voice was starting to sound hoarse. Still, absolutely nothing, not even a whisper of him. 

If anyone heard that he had shouted himself almost voiceless, he would just have to kill them later to curb the spread of rumours. He doesn’t give a fuck what they say about him, they curse his name as is, but the last thing Jiyan needs is a camp full of soldiers asking him since when is he fucking with the general. They don’t get to cause that kind of pain to him, not on his watch. He wouldn’t allow it even if Jiyan truly was involved with him, and that is merely an impossible fantasy, one that will never be fulfilled. Geshu Lin would surely know if the most ethereal man Jinzhou had ever seen was sleeping with him. Jiyan doesn't need people thinking that he is incapable, that the only reason he got anywhere as a soldier was because he agreed to warm his general's bed. No, he would make sure no one even thinks it. If he has to kill someone to keep Jiyan's honour, then so be it. He would do it, no questions asked… The only person who would probably object is the one he intends to protect.

Geshu Lin is tired of this entire mess that just refuses to fix itself. The exhaustion keeps seeping deeper and deeper into him, trying to drag him off into the cold embrace of nightmares. With a low groan, he lifts his head from the chair and rubs his hands over his face. He doesn’t notice the grime covering them before it is way too late, and he most definitely made the state of himself worse. He will have to shower and take care to present himself unwaveringly to his soldiers. Especially, if he wants to avoid speculations and rumours telling everyone he is worried so goddamn sick that he is incapable of taking care of his own physical well-being. He can already imagine the stories of how he can’t even care for himself, surely he shouldn’t be overseeing an entire army. He just has a lot more important things to worry about than some grime on his skin and a few wrinkles in his uniform. Neither will kill anyone and that is really the limit of fucks that he has left to give. He has spent every night searching for Jiyan, pouring his feelings all over unsuspecting tacet discords as he goes. He doesn’t need some runt to run to daddy in Jinzhou and say that the general is obviously offering higher positions for sexual favours or whatnot, because surely he wouldn’t search like this if it wasn’t his plaything that was missing. 

It is easier to keep a mask than try to explain to anyone that he is as much of a human as the rest of them, that he is capable of caring for another person without making it a goddamn transaction. Hiding, creating an image of yourself that makes all of them keep their distance, bottling up everything you feel until you are utterly alone to free them - it is easy. Too easy, in fact, it has become a habit, one that he isn’t even sure he can break anymore. He can't remember the last person he showed his true self to, it was quite possibly long before he even joined the army. Even Jiyan only sees what the general wants him to see, quite a big fraction of him remains hidden even to him, and Geshu Lin would offer that man the world on a silver plate if he could. Perhaps that is why he holds his secrets in the first place, Jiyan doesn’t need the torment that being loved by a man like him would surely bring. He deserves so much more, and the general may be cruel, but he could never be so heartless as to take Jiyan away from his happiness just so he could have him to himself like a golden bird in a cage. He can find other places to pour his feelings into, as is evident with the growing lack of tacet discords near the camp.

With each night he ventures further and further, searching areas he hadn’t before, turning every single rock upside down. In addition to the continuing lack of any sign of Jiyan, it becomes exceedingly hard to find anything to kill to get rid of his frustrations, too. He never imagined they could be running out of tacet discords just because he has no other way to deal with himself. Winning the war because Jiyan is missing would most certainly not save either of them from the grindstones of the rumour mill. Perhaps he should refrain from actually fist-fighting the Threnodian for now, to keep the war machine running nice and smooth until Jiyan is back. But he will do it after his return, and no one can stop him or say that it was for anyone but Jinzhou, even if the J in his mind when fighting is a totally different one, has been for a long, long while.

Even now, if he thinks hard enough, he can hear Jiyan’s voice in his mind . He can easily envision him sitting right there laughing at him, with him as if he had never left in the first place. In his mind's eye, he can see the way his eyes crinkle , the way he looks radiant like a rising sun. He can picture perfectly the way his eyebrows furrow whenever Geshu Lin teases him, the slight colour on his face when his jesting implies too closely at the intimacy that isn’t there. Embarrassing him has always been easy, and the expression on his face makes it worth a fortune.  

Geshu Lin never imagined that he would feel this horrible feeling again, to miss someone so dearly that he could barely breathe. It has been a while since he last had the misfortune after all. He has been alone in this world for almost as long as he can remember, the faces of his family blurring more and more in his mind with each year that passes , all he can remember of them is their death. After that, the only person who had bothered to knock on the figurative door to get to know him was Jiyan. He had opened it just a notch, but over time, it was as if what had protected the entrance had faded away into nothingness. Each minute he has spent in Jiyan’s company has chipped away at it until he has nothing to hide behind anymore, and by now, kicking the other man out of his life is just impossible. 

If he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the slender fingers raking through his hair, he can imagine how Jiyan would scold him for allowing it to fall into a state like this. It is a mess, one that hasn't seen a comb for just a bit too long. He just hasn't bothered. There are knots in the strands, and the night of fighting has painted some of it with grime, the white of it is barely guessable at this point. In his defence, it had been clean, even though messy, when he left. Jiyan being MIA is most definitely not doing Geshu Lin any good.

Silently, he stands up and staggers out of the door, heading towards his rooms with one goal in mind. The office reminds him too much of work and, therefore, just a bit too much of that poor fool who had dared to come in and announce that Vice General Jiyan was missing. Those images didn't do any good for his ability to sleep in there. Not that his rooms were any better. He has barely slept since then, and the dark bags under his eyes are definitely a dead giveaway. 

He spends an eternity in the bathroom, trying to get himself clean is the easy part. His hair, on the other hand? Safe to say that mess refuses all attempts at taming. The strands are almost entirely black in some spots, and getting it clean is taking all of his patience and then some. For a moment, he considers cutting all of it off. But then his mind conjures an image of Jiyan, the barely hidden awe on his face and tender hands as he had taken care of it, and he puts the knife back down, diving back into fighting with an insistent knot instead. The task of getting himself to look more like a human and less like a shadow feels terribly difficult. When he finally gets the strands to look like the white they should have always been, he stumbles out of the shower, water dripping around him onto the floor, yet he doesn’t have the energy to do anything about that either. It will dry eventually.  The man looking back at him from the mirror looks like a mere shell of himself. He still looks like a mess, even after he has scrubbed himself over so many times that his skin is tinted red in irritation.  He looks angry and tired. Sad, but he doesn’t dare to admit that one even to himself yet. 

Soundlessly, he combs through his wet hair, contemplating if trying to braid it would make him miss Jiyan and his skilled hands too much. There had been an incident, he had injured himself badly, and his hair had been the one to suffer as a result. His Vice General had braided it for him, taking care of the strands that had resembled a mop before he interfered. He had combed it before carding his hands gently through it, smoothing it down and braiding it into a polished, intricate braid. Every hair had stayed exactly where he had put them, not even attempting to cause the circus for him that they always forced the general through. Trying to tame his own hair was never as easy as Jiyan made it look.  Afterwards, Geshu Lin was afraid to even turn his head in case he accidentally ruined Jiyan’s hard work. In the end, he had been forced to take it apart as soon as he was out of bed rest for the sole sake of washing it. He hadn't dared to ask Jiyan to braid it again. 

With a deep sigh, he leaves the hair as it is, ignoring the constant dripping of water that falls from it, trailing down his bare back and making the small puddle on the floor grow one droplet at a time. Instead, he turns his attention to the cuts on his hand. Jiyan would surely have a field day with nagging should he ever find out that he had left the cuts untreated - he would definitely find a reason to nag him despite that as well - reluctantly, he cleans the wounds. Some of them are surprisingly deep, but surely nothing serious enough to bother with stitches. He wraps his hand and arm in bandages and calls it a day. It's sloppy, nowhere close to the pristine perfection that Jiyan always leaves behind, but it will get the job done, and that is all that matters. Despite that, he can’t quite shake off that choking feeling in his soul as he thinks of Jiyan. He does his best to ignore it and resolutely pulls on the only piece of clothing he can bear to wear while sleeping. He picks up the neat pile of the rest of them, switches off the light and turns to leave the bathroom. He needs sleep, and Sentinel knows he hasn’t been able to get a lot of it lately. He better catch every moment he can.

His hand is already on the doorknob, before he stills, barely breathing. There is a slight commotion inside his bedroom. The craving to curl up and sleep for at least a year is like swiped away with a broom instantly. The noise isn't anything too loud, but it is enough to make him set down the pile of clothes in his arms right on the floor next to where he stands and grab for the claymore he had leaned against the bathroom wall earlier. Silently, he pushes the door open and with steps as soft as a feline he creeps into the dark room, his blade raised towards the source of the noise and demands loudly to know who the hell has dared to break into the general’s sleeping chambers like a cheap thief. Geshu Lin gets no response even after he repeats his question. He switches the lights on and stares into the golden eyes of the criminal cowering on the floor right before his bed. 

***

It's a cat. A goddamn cat! And he isn’t even fucking cowering. The teal-coloured fucker is staring him down with utmost disrespect in his eyes and Geshu Lin has never felt more ridiculous than he does now, standing in his bedroom, half-naked, pointing a claymore at a fucking animal! He lowers the blade and watches how the trespasser sits down on the ground, back straight like a soldier giving a report. That thought is as absurd as the fact that the thing is in his bedroom, to begin with.

“How the hell did you get in here? OUT, shoo!”

The cat - as he really should have expected - doesn’t move a single muscle. The damn beast doesn’t even twitch a whisker. He keeps staring at him, and the look on his face closely resembles the one Jiyan gets whenever he attempts to refuse medical treatment. Getting scolded by Jiyan is one thing, but this is most definitely a new low. It is clear as day that the feline has no intention to start moving on his own, but goddamn, he can’t just remain sitting in the general’s bedroom like he owns the damn place either. Geshu Lin sets down his claymore again, leaning it against the wall and attempts to catch the fucker himself. Before he can even manage a full step forward, the bastard is gone like dust in the wind, as if he had never been there to begin with. Only the gentle fluttering of the sheet corner hanging over the bed frame gives away where the furry thing had gone. 

There is a goddamn cat under the general’s bed, hiding as if a monster haunting a child throughout the nights. Why must they all love beds so deeply, and how the hell is he supposed to get that specific one out from underneath his? With a heavy sigh, he gives up. He is not about to crawl under his bed for a damn animal. Surely he will leave the way he came once the room is silent and dark again, and even if he lingers throughout the night, he will most definitely realize how poor of a roommate Geshu Lin is and leave once he has been left alone. Having made up his mind, he kills the light and blindly stumbles into bed. He can’t exactly see shit, but at this point, the beast must keep himself alive on his own. He just wants to sleep the exhaustion away, even though he knows it is improbable. Minutes pass as he lies there on his back, the hair cascading all over his pillow like an insistent and quite frankly wet spiderweb, some longer strands even hang off the side, their tips almost touching the floor. He is about to fall asleep, his mind turning fuzzy when the bed moves suddenly, and he is startled out of whatever shut-eye he was about to achieve. Instantly, his eyes are wide open, staring into the empty darkness, listening carefully in the silent room. There is nothing, and he closes his eyes again, he really needs to sleep if his mind is starting to play tricks on him already like this. Yet before he can even start to fall asleep again, something warm and fuzzy curls up in the curve of his neck and starts purring tentatively. 

“Didn’t I tell you to scram, you little monster?” he grumbles. There really isn’t any point in fighting with the cat. If the tiny beast wants to play pretend and be his cuddle-buddy, then who is he to object? Plus, he isn’t exactly sure that he won’t somehow trick him into defeat.

He lays his bandaged hand on the creature, and the effect is instantaneous, the purring grows stronger, surer of itself, and the animal nuzzles even closer to him. Geshu Lin might be strong in battle, but deep down he is weak. And that creature that looks at him with eyes so similar to his Vice General will surely be the cause of his downfall, just like Jiyan himself. Maybe it is the combination of gold and teal that makes it so easy to succumb to that comfortable weakness. In the end, it doesn’t even matter, the small beastie is warm and surely he is allowed to indulge every once in a while. He turns to his side to face the cat and hides his own face in the long soft fur. He can almost imagine that the warmth comes from a body much larger before he shakes himself out of his idiotic fantasies. He really should get rid of that poor habit of letting his heart control what his mind thinks, especially in evenings like this. Jiyan might be a caring and loving soul, but not even he would ever look at the general like that. He has never deserved him, technically not even in the capacity he has the honour to have him in his life. 

He doesn’t get to lose himself in the endless paths of his mind before an extremely coarse tongue licks over the tip of his nose, leaving behind a line of tingling sensation. He splutters at the sheer audacity the furry thing has, no one has dared to take such liberties with him before. He doesn’t even get a moment to collect himself before the tongue licks over his nose again. 

“Stop that, who do you think you are!” he scolds, pulling away from the offending tongue, prickling his nose as if felting it.

The small animal utters an offended “meow” as an answer and curls back up, his nose pressed against the sloppily tied bandages. He bites one of the curls and tugs on it slightly, pulling it further down to cover some skin - or perhaps to bare the wounds underneath it for the whole world to see. Geshu Lin most certainly is not going to be taking those chances.

“Don’t you dare, I’m not allowing you to get Jiyan to scold me for your misdemeanours.” 

Gently, he flicks the beast on his nose and pays for it immediately as the sharp teeth dig into his finger in punishment. The yelp he lets out isn’t even close to being dignified. At least cats don't spread rumours and there is no one else around to hear him…

“Oh for fucks sake, alright-alright, you win, you little bastard,” he grumbles.

“I'll make you a deal, you leave my bandages alone and I leave your nose alone, how about it?”

He makes a noise very closely resembling a chirp and bumps his head right into Geshu Lin's own nose like a speeding train. Burning pain runs up half of his face, he scrunches his eyes closed in an attempt to will the agony away. If that is payback, then he most definitely deserved that one.

“I'm starting to think you were sent to assassinate me in my sleep, you little fuck,” he grumbles. “At least you are bad at it…”

The cat licks over it again gently as soon as he releases it. He appears almost apologetic with the way he looks at the general and much more carefully nuzzles his head under Geshu Lin's chin, purring again like a small engine.

“You sure take quite a few liberties, climbing into my bed like you own the goddamn place, what next, you'll start sitting in my office chair too, biting the recruits?” he laughs. Some of the soldiers really need to get bitten, and who knows, perhaps the beast will agree to fulfil his request if he bribes him with food.

He isn't exactly graced with an answer, going fully ignored in favour of curling up and resting. So he too falls silent, his fingers absentmindedly scratching in the cat's fur till sleep finally claims him. For the first night in a week, he doesn't dream of Jiyan's cold and dead eyes staring at him judgingly from whatever nightmare his mind wills up, blaming him for it all. In fact, he dreams of absolutely nothing.

***

He wakes to sunlight shining into his eyes insistently. Barely three hours have passed since he actually got into bed, but he feels like he has slept properly for once. It almost feels like a full night’s rest. He tries to move but soon realizes that there is something warm on his arm that is stopping him from doing so. The cat from last night is still sprawled against his side, stretching as long as he goes, his tail gently flicking near the general’s knees. The furry thing is pressed against his bare chest where he had tossed his blanket off during the night, and his front paws curl over his biceps. With his head laid down on the paws, he is deep asleep. Geshu Lin runs his hand over the length of the beast’s body and is answered with a noise that can surely be translated into:” What the hell do you want, can’t you see I’m sleeping?” Slowly, the golden eyes blink open and stare right into his soul, clearly upset that his nap had been interrupted.

“Time to get up, sleeping beauty, some of us have work to do.” He sounds horrible even to his own ears. He really needs to figure out what tea Jiyan makes for people when their voices are hoarse. He could really use a cup. The tiny bastard stretches and unceremoniously pushes all ten of his claws into his biceps as he does so. “Oh for fucks sake, will you stop injuring me!” He merely rises to his feet, clearly not even caring that he is attempting a kitten version of murder. The front paws still on his biceps, he shakes out his fur and then walks over to the patch of sun at the feet of the bed and curls back up as if nothing happened. Geshu Lin could swear that there were now toe-shaped marks on his arm. Grumbling about assassin cats that are absolute assholes he goes to get dressed, blankly staring at the empty chair where his clothes usually are before he recalls dropping them near the door instead. He walks over to them and bends to pick them up when he feels the tell-tale prickling of his skin that he gets whenever someone is staring at him. He looks over his shoulder and meets the golden gaze fixed on him. Surprisingly, the beast immediately lowers his head back down and throws his tail over his eyes.

“Aww, are you embarrassed?” he goads, before remembering that he is , in fact, talking to a cat.

“Oh, who am I kidding, it's not like you can understand me anyway.”

“Meeeeow!” 

That was the absolute angriest meow he had heard in his entire life. If it wasn't an animal he was talking to, he was sure that the little thing would be stomping his feet like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Yet when he looks over his shoulder at the furball on his bed, he still has his eyes hidden, curled up so tight as if he is trying to lose himself in his own fur, never to be seen again.

“Are you embarrassed by a bit of skin?” he laughs. He doesn't get another answer, but the cat curls up a bit tighter despite it seeming thoroughly impossible and hides his face deeper. Geshu Lin crouches in front of his bed so he is face to face - alright, face to tail - with him, gently he lays one of his hands on the ball of fluff and scratches behind his ear softly.

“I'm just kidding you, little beast, no need to hide. I'm not even fully naked.” 

A small mrrp is the only answer he gets, he even refuses to purr at the touch on his head that seemed to work miracles on him last night. Oh well, nothing he can do about it if his friend here isn’t much of a conversationalist. 

He finishes getting dressed in silence and turns to leave the room. The cat can surely find his way out the same way he found one in once he is done with his power nap in the sunlight. He manages to grab his claymore and reach for the doorknob before he is introduced quite violently to the beautiful grace of having a pet who believes he can do whatever the hell he wants with zero repercussions. Or who wholeheartedly believes in the medical value of acupuncture… The multiple new nail-shaped holes running up his leg and back insist on it quite painfully. He hisses at the sting, every single place where the claws had pierced skin pulsing. The slightly rocking cat on his shoulder shows no mercy even after he sends the bastard a murderous glare that would have most of his men scurrying to hide or beg for mercy. Yet he only looks at him with a fierce glare of his own that translates perfectly well as “Shut up and serve on.” 

With a sigh, he accepts his fate and marches from his rooms to oversee the workings of the camp, back straight as if he didn't have a cat pretending to be a parrot on his shoulder. The few soldiers that hadn't run at the sight of him were silently staring at the pair of them, keeping their distance, but still clearly ogling. Geshu Lin awarded them with his best glare, watching them all scatter immediately, muttering apologies and excuses as they ran like rats. The little beast on his shoulder hisses slightly, and while the general turns to see what he is unhappy with, he notices the cat perfectly replicating his own expression before facing him again, tilting his head slightly as if nothing happened. If anything, the bastard looks smug. He isn’t sure whether his sentiment is shared, and the kitten hates people staring like watching circus monkeys whenever something differs as much as he does, or he is, in fact, making fun of him. If this carries on, he will eventually have to ask the academy if they have invented a gadget that allows him to speak with animals.

The beast sits on his shoulder the entire time he walks around the camp like a little angel, even though his prickly habits portray him more like the devil, as the small additional holes in his shoulder have had the pleasure to prove. He anchored himself to the general each time he almost lost his balance, and to Geshu Lin’s unfortunate luck, it had been quite often, especially in the beginning. And despite that, he still allows him to stay there for every report he receives, looking all mighty and important like an exotic pet or a second, quite a bit smaller general. That one is an exaggeration, while the cat stands at full attention, he is more of a shadow than the centre of attention, at least not willingly. If anything it is clear, he doesn’t love the eyes on him like a narcissistic fucker, rather he just barely tolerates it for the sake of getting his other tasks accomplished - which for this bastard at least seems to be to cause as many new holes in his skin as physically possible. In a way, he is like Jiyan in this matter. As his Vice General, Jiyan was always standing a step behind him, at full attention but never interrupting, listening, making notes mentally, creating scenarios and plans all the while like a shade. He hated when everyone’s gaze was on him, especially when he just started taking on the responsibilities of such a high rank. It is most definitely starting to feel ridiculous how much he compares a random cat that had taken a liking to him with Jiyan. Maybe he is indeed starting to lose it. The two of them are surprisingly similar if you do think about it long enough.

Once there have been enough traumatized soldiers in the camp to warrant his leave, they march into the general’s office. They spend the rest of the day doing paperwork. Or well, Geshu Lin is attempting to fix the mess that his last night's rage had caused, and the little bastard is sitting on the corner of his desk that has so far been solely reserved for Jiyan and Jiyan only. He for sure is taking too many liberties, and looking just a notch too smug in the meantime as well. The little beast sure is too happy to see him bending over for some reports and fighting with glass shards absolutely fucking everywhere. The golden eyes follow his every movement, and when he finally sinks into his chair with a pile of ruined papers in front of him, all he wants to do is just cease to be. He did bring it onto himself, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t as bad. The cat isn’t helping either, in fact, he keeps pointedly staring at each document Geshu Lin picks out of the pile and rewrites. He can definitely bet that if animals could talk, this one would most certainly be telling him that A: it is his own fault and B: stop doing this half-assed.

“Neither of us is going anywhere if you keep looking at me like you want to kill me,” he mumbles before thumping his head against the table quite violently. It rattles his brain and in a weird way, it works in making the insistent ache brewing in the back of his skull go quiet. 

“Meow?” A paw thumps against him repeatedly as if checking that he is in fact still among the living. There are no claws - this time.

“You’re worse than Jiyan, you little bastard.” Even though he can pretty much feel the curious eyes boring holes into himself, he doesn’t elaborate any further. With a tired groan, he lifts his head back up and continues his paperwork. Minutes tick by and soon an hour has passed. The stuffy room has blessed him with a mind that feels as if it had been stuffed full of cotton, and the headache in the back of his skull is back with its insistent pounding. There is absolutely no way he could manage to focus on another word at this point.  He needs to get out of here and breathe some actual goddamn air. He sets the pen down. It rolls towards the edge of the desk and clatters loudly off of it. He doesn’t bother picking it up, instead, he pushes his chair back, ignoring the screeching sound that the scraping against the ground makes, he stands up. Wordlessly, he grabs for his weapon, fingers wrapping around the familiar hilt and hauls it over his shoulder as he is used to. 

The cat keeps staring at him, head tilted slightly, and he looks so confused that it is adorable.

“You should stay, the world out there can  be cruel.” 

The ball of fur does not follow his advice, making his way up to Geshu Lin’s other shoulder with the same prickling style as before. He will keep doing it for the rest of his life, won’t he? Performing free acupuncture on him for the sake of whatever revenge it is he seeks. 

“Suit yourself, but I’m setting you down later.”

With a slightly swaying parrot on his shoulder, who has apparently managed to fix his balance problem enough to not need to slice the general into shreds anymore, he makes his way outside of the camp, picking a slightly different direction than before. It will be a long night once again.

The first part of their walk is calm and silent, he doesn’t talk and the cat merely sits and looks around as well. The first time he calls out Jiyan’s name the furry beast startles and he is awarded with more nails into his already sore skin. He probably deserved that one…

“Just you know, I will be doing it again, don’t try to murder me each time,” he mutters, turning his attention back towards the land around them.

He keeps calling out his Vice General’s name, listening for answers and hearing only his own breathing in the empty darkness. Yet he keeps hoping, even though each night of silence with no sign of the man is leaving him more torn than before. He keeps pushing on in the stillness surrounding them. There is not a single enemy in sight this close to the camp, but eventually, he spots one a bit further away. The cat really should see what proper fighting looks like, not when it is clumsy soldiers whacking each other with wooden swords. It is finally show time.

He picks the prickly thing off of his shoulder and sets it back on its own feet, making sure not to hurt the little beast. His first mistake is trusting blindly that he will actually stay there. He can’t even straighten his back fully before the demon is back on his shoulder as if he had never left, staring at him with clear disapproval in his eyes, ears swivelling back and forth.

Geshu Lin picks him up again by the scruff, dangling the thing right in front of his face and pinning him with a glare that usually leaves his soldiers shaking in their boots. The bastard doesn’t even make a different expression.

“I’m going to fight, not attempt a circus performance, furry parrots are not on the schedule,” he growls. The cat just returns the favour and screams in his face, demonstrating his dissatisfaction loud and clear. It is surprising he didn’t wake the dead with how shrill his screeching is. Still, he sets him back on the ground. The screaming continues as if nothing changed. He is trailing behind the general with each step he tries to take and continues to wail.

“Use your own legs for once and for the love of Jué, HUSH!”

Purposefully he strides away before there is another attempt to climb him like a tree. A loud meow is all he gets as a response. The little beast sure loves telling him exactly what he thinks of him, if cats could nag, this one would definitely be doing that and loving it.

“Stay right here, and I told you hush! You’ll grab the attention of every TD within the entirety of Jinzhou at this point,” he grumbles, pushing the insistent bastard away with the toe of his boot, taking care not to accidentally hurt the fragile thing. He sure loves staying close to the general, not parting from him for a single minute of the day. It's unusual, he has always been alone most of his time and having the small animal running after him each step of the way is most certainly giving him unusual expectations for how things should be. At least the little creature agreed to stay still and quiet now, though it is quite clear that he is sulking like a small child about it. Why he doesn’t want the general to fight, he has no idea. It makes no sense to him. 

They spend the main part of the night like this, the general fighting every single tacet discord he can see in the vicinity, occasionally calling out to Jiyan and the cat walking behind him with a look of utter misery on his face. Each time he calls for his vice general, he is answered with a meow, a long and loud one. He sounds sad, echoing Geshu Lin’s own despair back at him.

Eventually, the bastard decides that enough is enough and as soon as the monster in front of Geshu Lin disintegrates into dust, the cat is on his shoulder and lets out a loud heartbreaking “Meeeow!” right into his ear. He didn’t even get to lower his weapon…

“Hush, little baby, I’ll be deaf soon if you keep doing that,” he grumbles. The beast does it again, just not as loud as before. At least it doesn’t make his ears ring anymore to the point that it seems like yet another attempt on his life, failed as it is. 

“What?” He looks back over his shoulder towards the slight hue of lights marking the place they had come from before pinning his big, sad golden gaze onto the general again.

“You want to go back?”

“Mrrp.” 

“Alright.” He agrees and turns towards the camp, eyes trailing over the path they had taken.  The grass is burnt and trampled in some locations, making it quite obvious where he had been. Yet the cat jumps down his shoulder and trots in a totally different direction as soon as he does that. 

“And where the fuck do you think you're going?” he demands, brows furrowed in confusion.

The little thing looks over his shoulder expectantly, tail swaying gently back and forth and continues his chosen path, looking back at Geshu Lin every few steps as if calling him to join.

“I guess you want me to follow you,” he sighs.

“If it is for you to catch a rodent, I’m going back without you!” he calls after him, following at a moderate pace. They move in total silence until the cat stops and sits down, he looks over his shoulder towards Geshu Lin and then back to what he is sitting in front of. There is nothing near the animal except a cliff’s edge. He is not here to admire the view, and he is about to tell the bastard so, but the feline directs his gaze off the cliff, stretching his neck to peer over the edge and looks back at the general again. Silently, he goes forward until he is close enough to see into the depths himself. There’s a camp. One that has been well-used for a while now and frankly shouldn’t be there to begin with. The amount of ash underneath the fire speaks of days, if not a week's worth of stay in the same location. He frowns, he hasn’t dispatched a single unit to this area, and the only one he had sent out should be constantly on the move. Yet still, the tents are clearly those that midnight rangers use. He crouches down and stills, not moving a single muscle and keeping watch like a hawk on the hunt. He will wait here however long it takes to see who exactly it is, and if he finds out that they are going against direct orders, he will burn them all into dust. Let their mothers wail and call him cruel, he will personally make sure there is no body to bury should this madness here directly contribute to the death of his Vice General. The idiots aren’t even keeping watch. A man as experienced as the general could silence all of them without any of them noticing him before they were dead. Hell, even TDs could trample them into keeping their silence forever should they feel like it. He hoped he had trained better survival skills into his soldiers, but apparently, this bunch has a certain death wish.

Quite some time passes before the first person exits one of the tents and checks on the fire, making sure that it keeps on burning throughout the night, before going back to sleep. He doesn’t even glance at his surroundings to make sure there isn’t anything set to murder him - like a certain man crouching on top of a cliff with his cat, fuming with rage.

If there is one thing General Geshu Lin can say for sure, it is that he knows each and every one of his soldiers by face, even if he can’t always remember their names. And he had sent that specific fucker to search for Jiyan not to play a fucking tea party with his friends. His knuckles turn white from the force of his grip around the hilt of his claymore. Slowly, he rises, and everyone with a pair of working eyes could tell that the intent in those golden eyes is anything but pretty. He doesn’t get to commit the murder as he wanted to, getting effectively stopped by a small set of teeth sinking into his boot and yanking with all the might of a tiny kitten, the deep growl escaping him almost makes him shake all over. The little beast is mighty adorable like this, but to be honest, he can’t even begin to stop the general if he doesn't choose to listen. The only reason he contains himself and allows him to get what he wants is so he can make a plan down to the last dot on the letter i - and to not accidentally hurt him, as it is apparent that he doesn’t fear getting trampled underneath the general’s boots. The small bastard trusts him a bit too much for his own good.

Though one thing he can promise, they will suffer for this, perhaps not tonight, but eventually he will make them all pay for the disrespect they have shown to him and, worst of all, to Jiyan. And they will pay the price a thousand times over. They better revel and thank their furry guardian angel, gifting them another night to live. He lifts the tiny beast off the ground and sets him on his shoulder.

“Let’s get back. I’ll make them regret ever being born later,” he says, scratching behind his ear before setting off towards the camp. 

***

Days pass, and they keep to their schedule. The cat doesn’t stay even a step behind him, no matter what he does. The only place he doesn’t come into is the bathroom, and whether it is because he still refuses to look when the general is almost naked or because of the water that could potentially soak him to the bone remains up for debate. Everywhere else, he is attached to him like a shadow. When he is training, he sits and watches over the soldiers, sometimes even trotting to ones that are struggling and getting the general’s attention with that loud meow of his that could wake the dead. Whenever the general isn’t fighting, the furry parrot sits on his shoulder, except when he files paperwork or eats. Then he sits next to him or on the table. After their first shared meal, when the daredevil had had the gall to steal a piece of chicken right off of his plate, he requested a separate one. Surprisingly, the little thing devours everything given to him, not only meat, but he even munches on potatoes and doesn’t shy away from other vegetables either. Safe to say the beast is less picky than half of his soldiers when they first arrive. He doesn’t stay away from him when he sleeps either, instead, he presses himself against the general so tightly that he might as well dig himself inside his ribcage and curl up around his heart like a scarf. Sometimes he just lies on top of him like a heavy and extremely tiny blanket, but it is clear that he prefers his side. 

Safe to say, he has acquired a pet and quite permanently so. He stops waking up every morning and expecting to see him gone. The bastard stays with him, and seemingly nothing will be able to deter him. Even when the general goes out to fight and search, the beast isn’t far behind. He doesn’t fight Geshu Lin over sitting on his shoulder anymore, but whenever he decides that enough is enough, the general is expected to obey. That is probably the only reason he sleeps more hours per night than before - a loud, quite literally nagging cat that just doesn’t allow him to wear himself down to the ground. Yet it has all been fruitless so far. There has been no hint that Jiyan is to be found anywhere, and it is clearly taking a hit on his mood even worse than before. The fluffball helps, sure, but he is still irritable. 

With a sigh, he rises from his office chair and grabs for his weapon. Before his fingers close fully around the hilt, his companion jumps down the table and sinks his tiny teeth into his leg. Not that it does anything with the boots he is wearing, but it is as ridiculous to look at as the first time he bit his ankle and tugged as if he could actually move the general somewhat successfully. What makes it surprising is that it is the first time the cat steps away from their carefully crafted schedule. Why?

“You want me to stay inside?” He violently shakes his fur and then looks straight at him again. 

“I guess that’s a no, oh who am I kidding, I’m talking with a fucking cat as if he could understand me.”  The adorable kitten bites at him again, trying to tug him towards the door, even though he doesn’t even come close, only his own paws slip and slide on the floor as he seemingly puts his entire strength and then some into it.

“I guess you want to show me something after all.”

To his utter astonishment, the bastard nods. Sits down in front of him and fucking nods like a goddamn human. Sure, he was perhaps more intelligent than usual felines, but nodding? In answer to a question? Perhaps he really is losing his mind. This can’t be possible. Cats. Don’t. Talk! Why is it happening now when he is sleeping better than before? He has no idea, but talking animals, even if they are only doing so through gestures, just don’t exist. Unless this one truly is more parrot…

“So you can understand me?” he asks, even though he feels like an idiot for it. Surely it was a one-time thing? 

Another nod, a lot shier than before, but still obviously a nod. This can’t be a coincidence… Even though the idea is wild beyond imagination, he has to accept it as his new reality. He can’t think of a single way how an animal could be as intelligent as this one, but in the world they live in, just about anything is possible. Maybe the academy just hasn’t discovered this specific phenomenon yet.  The cat is definitely more special than he already thought the furry bastard to be, clearly understanding him and “talking” with him. Plus, there really is no rational reason for him to hallucinate. 

“Alright, little beast, show the way.” 

He immediately dashes out the door, and Geshu Lin surprisingly has to pick up his pace by a lot to keep up with the tiny feline that is making a beeline towards the edge of the camp. For how short those legs are, he sure is a bullet on his feet, and it is clear that he is actually doing his best to allow the general to keep up with him.

Eventually, he slows down into a walk. They have ventured further away than Geshu Lin has come during any of the nights. Yet they still aren’t there, his guide keeps walking, but he also looks around himself, his ears swivelling this and that way constantly. Whatever he is keeping an ear and eye out for probably isn’t pleasant in his opinion. There are tacet discords, but they are too far to actually be dangerous to them. While on any other night, they would be dead already, the general has more important things to worry about at the moment. Like not losing sight of a cat that is surprisingly similar to the night around him and melds into the land like he isn’t even there. The fact that he keeps turning back every once in a while helps to keep track. If he still had to trail a goddamn racing furry bullet around the area he would have most definitely lost him sooner or later. 

They stop in front of what looks like a cave-in, a huge part of the cliff above them has come down and piled into an enormous heap of rocks and dirt. The air around it is weird, there are frequencies around the place that he has never seen before. He records the area for the academy, who knows, they might figure out what the hell has happened here to create such a situation. The cat lets him finish tinkering with the terminal before he climbs into a hole in the side of the cave-in that the general hadn’t even noticed. It is well hidden from first sight. Geshu Lin barely fits to follow him inside, having to twist his body and weapon to squeeze through and into what turns out to be a small cave. An abandoned one by the looks of it, though it seemed as if it had once belonged to someone, there are obvious signs of life, even though most of them are at least a few weeks old if not more. The cliff above, inviting itself in quite forcefully, may have compelled them to leave. His guide stops in front of something lying on the ground and lets out a long and loud meeow. The noise echoes around the empty cave like an insistent alarm.

Geshu Lin immediately crouches next to him, and his heart goes cold as ice as soon as his eyes land on the small, painfully familiar thing in front of them. On the ground lies a single intricate earring with a teal tail. He has never seen Jiyan remove either of them willingly, they are always exactly where they have to be, and for one of them to be here is not the good news he had wished to get when he eventually found a sign of Jiyan. It is lying far enough that the cave-in couldn’t be responsible for its removal, perhaps it was the reason Jiyan ended up here, but it did not take the jewellery from his ear. There are subtle signs of fighting surrounding it, a bit further lies an old stain of blood.

He forces himself to think, trying to will his mind into cooperation. Jiyan had been here, that much is clear. The amount of blood on the ground makes no promises that he could still be alive, though. Contrary to popular belief, he isn’t a medical tragedy. He knows what a deadly amount of blood loss looks like, and he is staring at one that most likely is exactly that. Of course, there is a chance that it wasn’t all Jiyan’s or that it wasn’t Jiyan’s at all, but the probability that it was his, on the other hand, was there and it was insistently nagging at the back of his mind. He did not want to think about the odds of Jiyan being dead, no matter how liable it actually might be. 

Okay, enough. He needs to think this through with an objective mind. He can’t just go around causing himself unnecessary grief when there could possibly be quite a few better explanations. He must figure out what exactly happened here and how the rogue frequencies tie together with it.

Wordlessly, he rises from the spot and gives the cave a slight look over. Nothing extremely obvious, so he walks around the cave, mentally cataloguing every single thing he sees, digging deeper and deeper into the details presented to him, trying to stitch together the picture. Signs of a struggle, more blood, the remains of broken crates - empty, not a piece of paper or anything to imply who the cave had belonged to. Could have been anyone starting from the fractsidus and ending with the exiles. Whoever they had been, Jiyan had not been welcome among them. There are ropes near the scene that had obviously been used to tie someone's hands behind their back, but the knots aren’t open, and there are no signs of it being cut off. It doesn’t look loose, in fact, compared to his own arms, if it had been used to tie Jiyan up, it was probably tight enough to cut into his skin. There was no way Jiyan could have wiggled out of it. Which in turn means that it had never been removed. The only other option he can think of is to cut off the arms themselves, but the small amount of blood on the threads is more consistent with rope burn than amputation.  So how the hell had they ended up empty and on the floor like this? Geshu Lin is confused, to say the least.

The puzzle in front of him makes zero sense, and there is a high chance that it isn’t something that regular happenings can explain properly.  It is quite likely that Jiyan had fallen with the cliff, it would be the only reason he could end up in enemy territory and not wipe the floor with them. Maybe he had been fighting even before, and that altercation was the reason the rock had given away, succumbing to the pressure put on it unexpectedly. The cliff was extremely high, to survive that kind of fall in the first place probably meant he had used his forte to protect himself from the rocks and the eventual impact. And if he had to use it to fight whoever had occupied the cave as well, possibly having tired himself long before it as one of the only resonators on the team, he might have exhausted himself. It wasn’t unheard of for fortes to act unpredictably, they could easily cause deep exhaustion to the point where needing to sleep for a week isn't unreasonable.  While Jiyan was no newbie, surely even he has a limit to which he can be pushed, and nothing here indicates that he hadn’t been pushed over it long before he got here.  But that would still leave a body, and that is a problem he can’t solve. How can there be no signs of a body, alive or dead, in this cave? Sure, they could have moved him, but whatever reason would anyone have to take him with them and not use it to make demands to the general, to the government? No one from Jinzhou had indicated that Jiyan’s status as MIA had reached their ears, and Geshu Lin was intentionally keeping it under wraps. 

He goes back to the ropes, there must be something relevant about them that he can use to put this goddamn puzzle together.  It is obvious from the prints in the dirt that someone had lain there, tied up, someone approximately Jiyan’s size and height. There were signs of dragging, but they came from the earring location to here and not away. In fact, there was no indication that anything happened after that. There were obvious signs in the dirt that Jiyan had tried to break free from the ropes, but the only footsteps that went to him had that small tail, which made it clear they were from when they moved him and after that walked away. No one else had approached. They had dragged him here and dropped him like a sack of potatoes, that was it. Whatever happened next, they had not approached. Neither had Jiyan left… The only prints near there are those of a cat. The little beast probably looked around when they arrived, or even before that, as he knew exactly where to go, so Geshu Lin pays them no mind at all. He tries to rack his brain for any possible scenario that could end in a person disappearing quite literally into thin air. It is clear as day that whoever had been here had not taken Jiyan with them. The only thing that can cause such a state and leave behind unidentifiable frequencies that are, quite frankly, lingering all over the place is a long list of potential resonance anomalies. They are rare, but not unheard of, yet their unpredictability makes it quite impossible to diagnose them properly and say for sure what had happened. There is only one thing that is certain when it comes to those - the survival rate of anyone involved in such anomalies has so far been a big fat zero. 

Jiyan must be dead. 

This can't be, he can't be dead . Not Jiyan, anyone but his beloved Jiyan. He can't just not exist anymore. Yet the proof sits in front of him, and there is nothing else he can think of that could have happened, nothing that could mean that his Vice General could ever walk into his office again and smile at him like he means it.

He crumbles to his knees, staring emptily in front of himself for a long moment, minutes tick by as he tries to come to terms with this madness. Eventually, he crawls the small distance to the earring that, as it turns out, hadn’t been saved from blood spatter after all. His eyes lock onto that instead of staring nowhere. All he can hear is static, empty ringing in his ears. With heavily shaking hands, he picks it up, carefully wiping away the droplet of blood staining it. To his horror, he can feel a single tear roll down his cheek. And another trails right after it. He pays them no mind as one is followed by many. He doesn’t utter a sound, eyes fixed on the small piece of Jiyan that is apparently all he will ever find. He won’t have a body to bury. Jiyan will never even have an occupied grave. Will he even rest in peace if there is no proper way to lay him to rest?

He barely notices as his companion climbs up into his lap, wiggling himself under his arms and supporting his front paws on his shoulders to reach his face. He nuzzles against his skin, the coarse tongue licking away his tears as they flow. The small beastie is desperately purring and occasionally rubs his head against Geshu Lin's chin, doing his best to comfort the general falling apart in front of him. He barely feels it, barely notices it. His mind running in empty circles. Chasing the same thoughts around uselessly like a dog tearing at its own tail. He clutches the earring in his palm and finally hugs the cat close, squeezing the furry thing against himself tight enough that he protests with a small meow. He loosens the hold just a notch to not hurt him more and hides his face in the soft fur. He sobs silently, the gasping of his breaths the only subtle sound in the empty cave, nothing else escapes his lips. He has no idea how long it has been before the tears dry and he is left crouched over in a barren cave, feeling just as empty himself. It's been way too long since he last cried. He never had a reason to after that night. And yet here he is, clutching a tiny animal tightly in his arms like a teddy bear as if he is once more that small child covered in blood who had seen his parents die. Geshu Lin shakes the gruesome image from his mind, willing it to sink back into the oblivion he had buried it a long while ago. His heart and soul ache, deep burning pain in his chest as if someone sank their hand into his ribcage, wrapped their fingers around his heart and tore it out. His body is following the motions of being alive, but he barely feels like it, just an empty shell of a man is all that remains. Silently, he stands, his knees cracking and his leg muscles buzzing from keeping them still for so long. He clutches the cat close to his chest, like a purring bandage, the creature seems to be the last thing holding him together, keeping the aching emptiness in his heart barely under wraps. Without a single glance around, he walks out of the cave still clutching the earring in his hand as he goes. He doesn’t look back, his eyes trained forward into a single point.

The walk back is almost silent, he doesn’t make a single sound, and the purring thing in his arms is the only interruption to the freezing silence. For the first night since Jiyan went missing, Geshu Lin doesn’t kill a single tacet discord.

***

He doesn’t go to bed that night or the next. He walks around the camp, his anger subdued into nothingness overnight, he goes through all of the motions as is expected of him . He trains the soldiers, he gives orders, he watches Yhan bully the recruits. Every night, the general sits in his office and his hands fill out the paperwork as they should. All of it is pristine and correct down to the last letter, but his heart nor mind is in any of it , he is merely going through with the empty movements. Soullessly. He ignores the cat sitting on the corner of his table, no matter how badly he tries to get the general's attention. And the little monster is doing everything his small but creative mind manages to come up with. He bumps his hands and arms with his head, nuzzles close to him, licks his skin, and when none of it works, he even resorts to biting him. He hardly feels it when the sharp fangs sink into his skin , he just softly pushes him away, picks a fresh paper to redo the work that had been stained by the few droplets of blood dripping from the bitemark and continues in the exact same line. And whenever he ends up falling asleep against his better judgment, he wakes with a gasp not even an hour later. The images in his mind alternate between reality and fantasy. His mind keeps coming up with worse and worse visions every time he accidentally sleeps , each and every one of them makes him want to rest even less.

He keeps to his new routine, everything deteriorating around him worse and worse , until the day the cat decides to escalate his search for attention. He jumps onto the table, which he had left sentinel knows when and releases a panicking mouse onto it. The poor creature scurries all over Geshu Lin’s papers and even his hands, making inky paw prints all over everything before dashing down the side of the desk and off into the darkness of his office. It's the last drop he manages to bear. Geshu Lin breaks.

“S top it, you bastard. ” He growls, and the feline on the table corner freezes. 

“Y ou keep bothering me as if you don’t have a single thing better to do , can’t you see that I don’t give a fuck that you're here. ” He pins the beast with a glare.

“S o why don’t you do the world a favour: fuck off and don’t come back .”

He doesn’t move a single muscle , his big eyes stare at the general, but not even a whisker twitches. The golden eyes watch as he gets to his feet, slow and menacing, points at the open window and screams: ” I told you to get out !  So GO, before I throw you out !”

He had never raised his voice like that.  When he was angry, he was calm, and that made him scary, but he had never screamed at anyone before. Hell, he has never even shouted at the recruits, even though they make him want to shake someone almost daily. But something in him had snapped in half, and the thread barely holding him together is no longer capable of fulfilling its duties. The cat goes, not before flinching back in obvious fear, and if its eyes look round and shinier than they probably should, Geshu Lin doesn’t care a bit. 

That one is a lie. He regrets it the moment the kitten leaves. The silence in the room is deafening, and the entire world's weight crumbled on top of him, burying him underneath its agonizing heaviness. He falls back into his chair like an empty sack, with nothing holding him up anymore, and if his shoulders shake violently and his eyes aren’t as dry as they should be, then the only witness to that is the night itself. And maybe the mouse somewhere in his office.

“G reat Geshu , you finally scared off the last creature in this world that gave a single fuck about you. ” His words are bitter, and the ache in his chest grows worse with each moment. The little one just wanted to help, didn't he? Perhaps he just wanted the general to be human again, not a robot going through the mechanical movements but having no soul in any of it. And he allowed his grief to consume him so deeply that he didn't even realize it.

He drops his head against the table with a loud bang, allowing himself the tears on his cheeks. If Jiyan were here, he would surely have something to say about the way he was treating those around him, and himself, as a matter of fact. But Jiyan, sweet, lovely Jiyan will never scold anyone ever again, no matter what they do. 

It is the first night in a long time that Geshu Lin goes to his rooms. The cat-shaped emptiness in his bed and heart makes his chest ache even worse than the Jiyan-sized void alone. Sometimes he wishes he could take back all the words he has said in anger, some of them are words that never should have seen the light, words he didn't even mean or think, but that anger brought to the forefront like an uncontrollable fire burning everything around him to dust. To take back the ones said to Jiyan, to the little bastard. There are probably a few others that he has been unjust towards, but in the end, there are only two who truly matter to him. Sometimes he still yearns for too much, neither of them will ever return, even if he wishes with all of his heart to have them back.

He sleeps maybe an hour before he wakes up gasping for air as the last remaining images of his nightmare fade into the background. He is left staring towards the ceiling, heart beating wildly in his chest, trying to break free through his ribs. Everything around him is dark and silent, his side where a certain cat usually slept freezing cold. He throws his head back into the pillow with a groan, barely missing the wooden frame of his bed. 

He tosses and turns for about half an hour before it becomes painfully obvious even to the blind that there is absolutely no way in hell he could sleep another minute again. His mind refuses to shut up enough for any rest to claim him. Even when awake, the madness his mind creates is driving him up the wall, refusing him peace and quiet. There are way too many thoughts haunting every minute of his life, and nothing works.

“O h for fucks sake, ” he grumbles, fighting the blanket off and stumbling out of bed blindly. The offending cloth falls to the ground in a depressing heap, but he doesn’t even care about that . He pats at the bedside table until he manages to switch on the light and staggers to his desk, rummaging through one of the drawers. He is pretty sure he left them somewhere here. Apparently not. He slams the poor thing shut and opens the next one, digging through it, not giving a fuck whether the end results look like tornado aftermath or not. Eventually, he manages to locate a pencil and, through more insistent rummaging, he finds the pad of papers as well . If that doesn’t manage to silence his mind either, then he is out of ideas. He leaves his desk be, the last of its drawers hanging open, but he pays it no mind as he stumbles back into bed. 

He drags the blanket up from the floor, puffing up his pillow to save some of his back from the harsh wood of his bedframe as he leans on it. Geshu Lin supports the pad of papers on his bent legs and starts mindlessly sketching, trying to shut down his mind from interfering. He has no idea  what he is actually doing, just allowing his mind to flow free of all thoughts and give his muscles the complete freedom to decide. At first, it helps to keep his wandering thoughts at bay . Until the image starts to take a certain shape.

It doesn’t really surprise him when he realizes what - or rather who - is appearing on the paper one line at a time. He keeps staring at the familiar eyes that lack their golden colour - mainly because he has never bothered to get any coloured pencils - but that still hold that special gaze Jiyan gets when he is planning something. He traces the arch of his eyebrows that he knows by heart, the slightly upturned corner of his mouth, the tiny shadow of a barely existing dimple that shows up fully when he is - was - truly grinning in happiness. 

He doesn’t want to forget what he looked like, doesn’t want to forget the fragrance that followed him around and remained wafting through the air so subtly that it was barely there even when he had already left. He wants to remember forever what his voice sounded like, his laughs, the noise of embarrassment he couldn't hold back when Geshu Lin teased him a bit too much. He knows that it is inevitable, one day in the future he won’t be able to recall any of those details and no matter how much he loves the other, it won’t save his memories from the massacre of time. His hand falls away from his lap, shaking slightly, the drawing going down with it, and soundlessly he leans his head back against the wall as a single tear traces its path into the skin of his cheek. No other follows. When will this eternal suffering cease? Is there even an end to this? Would it stop when he follows Jiyan over the bridge? Would dying grant him another moment with Jiyan? Or would the sentinel see fit to punish him for the way he has lived his life by never letting him see his beloved again? He tries to shake the questions from his mind, there are too many of them and way too few answers. He keeps his head leaned back and eyes closed, but his mind refuses to cooperate, and the thoughts run around a mile a minute on tracks he would rather not think about. Nothing helps, he has no power to derail that train and redirecting it works for only a moment before something utterly foolish reminds him of Jiyan again and he is blunged back into the freezing waters of the prison of his own doing. 

An almost nonexistent dipping of the bed rouses him from the thoughts, but he doesn't bother looking at what it could have been. There is no one left in this entire camp that would dare to seek him out at such a time. Surely he imagined the sinking of his bed underneath the small weight that could be his companion’s. The tiny bastard won’t come back. His head snaps up with a painful crack snapping through his neck as soon as a small paw steps on his stomach, tentatively as if scared of what the general could do. For a moment the cat stares at him and he stares at the cat in utter surprise, before the little fucker decides to hell with it and scrambles into his lap with all four legs, settling down, and curling his front paws under himself. Geshu Lin keeps staring, his eyes wide open, and slowly he lays his trembling hand on the animal, feeling the warm and soft fur underneath his fingertips. He starts purring, and that is the final drop in the goblet before it overflows. With a choked sob - and a scandalized meow - he drags the cat up to his chest, clutching the furry beast into a chokehold of a hug. He can't really reel in the overflowing feelings as he hides his freshly tear-streaked face in the soft fur. He can't help his violently shaking shoulders either.

“ I 'm sorry, I'm sorry, fuck, I'm so sorry… ” He mumbles, a constant stream of apologies slipping from his lips, begging for the forgiveness he doesn't truly deserve, yet desires more than anything in the world .

“Jiyan, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…” It doesn’t matter to whom or for what he begs the forgiveness for, the words keep spilling, and like a broken record, he keeps mumbling them into the purring creature in his arms. He can’t remember the last time he ever apologized for anything. Most definitely not like this. It feels like the cat might be trying to lick any skin he could reach in an attempt to soothe him, but frankly speaking, he barely knows what is going on in his own mind at this point, everything blurring together into a mess of feelings that seemingly have no end in sight. It is as if someone tossed him into a stormy ocean and told him to swim when he has never seen water before, and isn’t that true in a way, he hasn’t had reason to deal with emotions of this calibre in a long, long while. They are foreign to him now, and he has not an ounce of command over them. He still tries to get them back under his own control, tries to fight against the tide, but it seems like a mission impossible. All he is left with is to wait for the hurricane to pass on its own, merely hoping that eventually, there will be a dawn after it.

He has no idea how much time passes, but eventually, the tears cease to flow, and he is left gasping slightly for breath against the soaked fur. He is still clutching the poor animal to his chest impossibly tight. It surprises him that the little bastard hadn’t done his best to escape, instead opting to nuzzle closer to him. Reluctantly, he allows the hold to loosen just a notch, allowing him to escape if he wants to. He doesn’t run immediately as Geshu Lin expected, instead, he headbutts him in the jaw, prim and proper, the impact interrupting his own purring with a slight hitch before he wiggles out of the chokehold keeping him hostage. Seemingly, he planned to curl up against his side like he always loves to, but freezes one paw in the air. A questioning “mrrp” is all that can be heard as he tilts his head curiously to the side, before taking a step back instead. The cat settles down in his lap like he had attempted before the general had his undignified display of feelings. Geshu Lin picks the drawing back up and lays it against his legs, the bottom edge of it sitting against the small body in his lap, but other than lifting his head and staring into the Vice General's eyes, he shows no indication that it bothers him. Geshu Lin scratches behind his ear, and the little beast purrs contentedly, his paws kneading against the general's leg slightly. Now that the bastard is back on his lap, it is difficult to keep his hands to himself and not draw comfort from his warmth. The cat leans far back against his stomach and stares up into his eyes, one of his paws is in the air, and yet it is still curling up and stretching again in the air in perfect collaboration with the other.  

“I don't want to forget him,” he whispers into the silence of the night.  “And it scares me that I know I eventually will.” His voice remains quiet, and it seems that even the purring is hushed in a way it wasn't before, just to keep the general’s voice audible.

“H e, well, he meant everything to me. ” One of his hands still pets the cat, and it helps to keep him calm , to keep his thoughts from deteriorating into a mess no one could possibly understand.

“I n some twisted way, he was my reason to survive. It’s been a while since I fought for Jinzhou.  For a long while now, I have been fighting for that smile on his face. Fighting, so he could be happy. ” He gulps, the words heavy on his tongue.

“W hat will I do, Jiyan , how could I possibly go on without you….? ” he mumbles, tracing his thumb over the drawing’s cheek, caressing the paper and wishing over everything in the world that it was warm skin instead. 

“I should have been the one to die, not you. Jinzhou would benefit greatly from your lead instead of mine. ” The words are punished by a set of tiny teeth sinking into his hand, and the cat looks at him as if he said something stupid. He merely chuckles at his antics, even though there is little to no happiness in the sound .

Eventually, he props the drawing up against the lamp on his bedside table and sinks back into his previous position. He stares up towards the ceiling, his hand lying on the fluffy side of the beast and listening to the purring that vibrates through his own flesh as well. His mind actually quietens and he knows for sure that drawing wasn’t responsible this time. It is calming to lie like this, and even though he misses Jiyan with every fibre of his being, it hurts less than before, his little darling is back with him, and at least one wound is scabbing over as a result.

“ I ’m … I’m glad you chose to come back, little bastard .”

***

Geshu Lin ends up sleeping for another few hours, the warmth on his stomach that is pooling down his side definitely being one of the most important factors that made this feat possible. The cat is still dozing, deep in dreamland, his back legs still on his stomach where he had fallen asleep, the front half of him on the other hand is against his side, slipping off of him like a very slowly flowing river. The small beast stretches a bit, slumping fully off him and now lying completely against his side, legs towards the sky, stomach on full display. The damn thing couldn't get more adorable if he tried. Geshu Lin yawns, despite knowing full well that now, once he is up again, there is no way he could fall asleep again, sure he could lie around and do nothing. But sleep? That is entirely out of the question. There is something that has been bothering him for a while, something he really should do.  Now is about as good a time as any other, most of the camp sleeps, and no one will ask questions that the general never intends to answer truthfully. Carefully, he wiggles himself away from the warm kitty cuddles and sits up, his feet hovering just a millimetre above the cold floor. A bunch of nails brush against his back as the little thing stretches. A small “mrrp” interrupts the silence of the room, and when he looks over his shoulder, the golden eyes are staring at him already. Halfway closed with sleep, but still staring.

“You can stay, and rest, I won't take long to do what I must.”

The cat glares at him lightly, before yawning wide and training his disapproving gaze back onto the general as soon as his mouth snaps closed, as if to scold him for sleeping so little. 

“I know, I know, I’ll be back eventually, ” he says, messing up the little beast's fur a bit .

Without another word, he dresses and leaves the room - or tries to - he doesn’t make it far before an already painfully familiar feeling runs up his leg and back, and a furry parrot ends up on his shoulder. Geshu Lin merely shakes his head and carries on. He doesn’t talk to him like he usually does, doesn’t tell him where they are going or what they are doing, but he doesn’t look anywhere near as happy as he had a mere moment ago. If anything, he seems to be deep in thought, moving through the camp on muscle memory without his mind actually being there with him.

So, without any sound besides the thump of the general’s boots against the floor, they make their way through the corridors until they come to a stop in front of a single door that in no way looks important enough or different from the others. Yet the utmost care that Geshu Lin uses to enter and the way he makes sure to not touch a single thing  speaks differently. He walks up to the desk, his steps soft, a huge difference from the way he usually walks. From the first drawer, he takes a small pouch, picks a single piece from it, ties it back up and gently places it back as if he had never moved it to begin with . He closes the drawer without it making a sound, a stark contrast to the way he had treated his own desk mere hours ago.

He leaves the room, without touching anything else and leaves the settlement altogether, his feet carrying them outside and onto a small cliff that overlooks the entire camp and even Jinzhou is visible in the distance. That is where Geshu Lin finally stops and kneels. He buries his fingers into the soil there, digging a small hole with his bare hands and drops the small thing he had taken into it before pushing the dirt back over it again.

“It’s an emortia flower. He always insisted on planting one for the fallen, so I must plant one for him too.” He stays silent for a long minute, keeping his head lowered in front of the small patch, paying his respect to the man who had fallen in battle. No matter where they bury the empty coffin eventually, no matter where they slap down the tombstone that will not stand out in any way from the others, this is the place where Jiyan truly rests in Geshu Lin’s mind. This is where he will visit his beloved when he can bear the thought of coming to his grave again.

Geshu Lin remains kneeling in front of the fresh grave, staring off into the distance where the hue of Jinzhou shines, the city still living as if nothing is wrong as if her best son didn’t pass. His hair flows with the wind, and moonlight shines upon the cliff, and the entire night remains silent, not even nature interrupts. Perhaps it is true  that at the end of the world is a cafe where they could meet again , perhaps Jiyan too now sits there and sips tea, as if nothing had happened, waiting for those he knows to show up and greet him again, with that beautiful smile on his face.

“You know, I should have apologized to him too, more than once.” The cat that had climbed off his shoulder and curled up against his leg, perks up, clearly listening to what he has to say. He pays no mind to the feline, his eyes locked on the horizon, but he doesn’t really see the flickering lights of Jinzhou or the stars dancing in the sky, he doesn’t really see anything, his mind miles away instead. 

“I was an asshole. I just wanted him to give his best, and he always did when he thought he had something to prove,” he whispers.

With a sad chuckle, he continues: “ I pissed him off way too many times, yet he always came back having achieved more than he thought himself capable of. ” His fingers absentmindedly pick grass blades from the ground, one by one, and he tears each and every one of them into tiny shreds. He gets lost in his own mind again, and a few minutes pass before he manages to rip himself out of memories to continue.

“I hurt him more than I ever wanted to. I never meant to cause him that much pain. I just wasn’t sure how else to make him see his worth, he didn't listen when I tried in other ways, so I always had to resort back to that.” Minutes pass and when it seems like he isn’t going to continue, the cat gently headbutts him in the knee, quite painfully, and lets out a soft “mrrp”.

“ I 'm not entirely sure what love is supposed to feel like, ” he laughs, but the sound is hollow, empty of everything that is supposed to make it pretty and happy.

“N ever had a good example…. ” 

The silence stretches for a while before he continues: “ But if I ever loved anyone in my entire life, it was him. Oh who am I kidding , of course I loved him, he could have told me to shoot myself in the foot and I  wouldn't have hesitated, not even for a moment …”

He doesn’t notice the scandalized look on the beast’s face as he stares at the general as if the man has grown another head. 

“I never told him, I couldn't break him like that... ” He stares at his hands for a moment before raising his eyes to the colouring horizon again.

“I don't know how to love anyone. My family has been dead far longer than I can remember, and neither the streets nor the army cared about me. Just another kid that will surely die.”

He cards one of his hands over the soft fur, letting the familiar action comfort the emptiness yawning in his soul. 

“H e was perhaps the only person to think of me as, well, me, even when he didn’t have the full picture. ” He flops down next to the cat, lying fully on his back and staring up towards the night sky that is slowly but surely tinting red.

“And now? Now I’m stuck in this goddamn rut, I yearn for his presence, his attention. I yearn for him more than anything in the world, and I can't have him. I would burn the entirety of Jinzhou to the ground if it meant I could see him again if I could just hold him close once more and never let go.”  He laughs, and the empty sound echoes back to him from the cliffs. He closes his eyes and just allows himself to be for a moment before he opens them again and turns his head towards the horizon.

First rays of light peak over the ground, painting the world in brilliant gold as a new day dawns, and with the light reaching him, covering him in the shine of it all, he whispers:

“A ll I wish for is just to see him smile again .”

***

Days pass and nothing changes. To the men around him, the general is as strong as always, perhaps just as angry as in the beginning. In the darkness of his rooms, he is a totally different person. He doesn’t cry anymore, but he feels empty. Like there really is nothing worth living for, except for a certain cat and maybe for vengeance. He doesn’t know for sure what or who cost Jiyan his life, but he knows damn well, who would be the first in line he points his weapon to. In his nightly spurts of work, he has run out of goddamn paperwork to do, the sleepless nights leaving an obvious dent in the previously large pile on his desk. So instead he starts fighting again, eradicating half of the tacet discord population around the camp single-handedly. Each night he comes back with more scrapes and bruises, and each night it makes him feel worse than before. He knows he is wasting away, and he also knows that nothing under the sun excuses him for making such a difference for only one of his soldiers. He wished he could say that every life was worth the same, just another sad reality on his paperwork, yet when it came to Jiyan, there was no way he could reduce him to a grim statistic. Talk about impartiality…

Eventually, the night of vengeance falls upon the highlands. And for the first time in a while, he manages to convince the cat to stay behind, to sleep in his bed while he goes out and does what he must. He tells him a sob story, tells him how he feels the need to be alone, to visit Jiyan’s grave and stay with him for a while. It works, even if technically it is a lie, but surely the little beast won’t know the difference. No one will tell him what the general is actually up to, so he can’t utilize his masterful look of disappointment.

He returns to the cliff that had been shown to him on their first night together. The fire still flickers in the same place, only the amount of ash has grown. All seven of the soldiers he had sent out sit around the fire, bottles lying around and playing cards. They laugh as if they were sent out to party as if Jiyan wasn’t dead because of them and their actions. None of them are paying attention to their surroundings, and not a soul in this camp is ready for what will befall them. If they are capable of leaving their Vice General behind and ignoring a direct order from their General, are they even worth the title of soldiers that they have earned? Perhaps they, too, shall see what their commanding officer had to go through before he passed. And while he can’t summon resonance anomalies nor does he know who the cave belonged to, none of it means that he can’t show them the error of their ways. 

Silently, he slinks back into the night, running around, taunting the creatures staring back at him from the darkness. It is easy to get them to follow him, they yearn for his death as much as he wishes for theirs. They race after him as he dances through the familiar lands and leads them closer and closer to the small campsite. Once he is near enough that the TDs should turn their attention to the soldiers, he disappears from their line of sight, making his way back to the cliff, keeping his weapon within range should he need it after all and watches. The small group of TDs floods the camp, and the rascals are forced to fight. None of them are really up for the task, yet they manage - somewhat. All of them sustain injuries, some worse than others, some in obvious need of medical attention, others less so. None of them passes in battle. But their faces are white in fear, and their eyes keep looking around wildly. They try their best to take care of the wounded. The job is sloppy, none of them capable of pushing down the shaking of their hands and their attention is anywhere else but where it should be. Good. Suffer. Yet despite getting his revenge he still feels fucking empty.

With a low growl, he disappears into the night. There are still many tacet discords out there that have yet to taste the burn of his blade, and maybe one of them will be the one to finally make him feel something besides this horrible nothingness consuming him.

***

When he returns that night, he throws himself straight to his bed, clothes and all. He just stares at the ceiling and doesn't move a single muscle. Even when the cat jumps up to join him and stares at him just lying there, he receives no answer at all. Gingerly, he steps onto Geshu Lin's stomach, intent to make his way to the general's chest to curl up on. At the first touch of his paw to the general's abs, the man hisses sharply in obvious pain, and the paw comes away soaked red.  

“Let's just agree that you don't step there for now.” His voice is exhausted. That's all he says before he closes his eyes again and remains lying there like dead. 

The feline sinks his teeth into the shirt and insistently tugs it up over the wound in his stomach. It's ugly to say the least, still sluggishly bleeding. Geshu Lin technically knows that it needs stitches, but the only man he ever allowed to stitch his wounds was dead, and while he could do it himself, he still remembers the face Jiyan had pulled the first time he had seen them. He'll do something about it when things aren't looking that pretty anymore. He is just so tired. 

“It will heal eventually, no need to panic, you little bastard.”

The cat growls at him, all menacing, his fur puffed up and jumps off the bed and disappears from sight. Less than a minute later, the tiny beast comes back dragging the first aid kit after himself. It is obviously way too big to be moved comfortably by a set of jaws instead of hands with opposable thumbs, but somehow he manages. He drags it all the way to the bed, and from there, it is quite obvious that, as he barely managed to drag it to begin with, it will be quite impossible to get it on the bed. He fights it open, eventually grabs the tiny bottle of antiseptic from it between his teeth and jumps on the bed. In this way, he makes a few more trips for bandages, the suture kit and cloth. Insistently, he headbutts Geshu Lin’s hand, but when he is fully ignored, sinks his sharp teeth into the general's wrist. He makes a very disgruntled noise and yanks his hand away from the cat, who growls at him again and shoves the roll of bandages closer to the general in quite obvious order.

“Oh alright you insistent little fuck, I’ll deal with it.”

He removes his upper-body clothing, throwing it straight off the bed, not even caring where it lands and cleans the wound even though it is obvious that he would rather let slumber claim him. Perhaps he wouldn't wake up again if he sleeps now… Jiyan would definitely kill him again in the afterlife if he does that, though, so he forces himself to stitch the wound. It causes him great pain to do so, each puncture of the needle followed by a wheezing gasp. The cat sits by his side and very closely monitors each and every one of his movements. The way he moves is sluggish, clearly exhausted, but he pushes through because the way he looks at him is so painfully similar to Jiyan’s and the only difference is that the bastard lacks opposable thumbs to do the damn job himself. He does eventually manage to knot the thread at the end of the wound, and even though it is messy, it should hold for now. Gritting his teeth, he forces the last of his energy into bandaging the injury. He sways slightly, and the way the cat steps closer makes it clear that he is worried, even though objectively speaking, there is absolutely nothing he can do to help. Eventually, he is done, even though the bandage is poorly tied, it covers the wound, and he isn't bleeding out anymore - for now. The feline must think good enough as it gingerly locates himself on the other side of Geshu Lin and curls up against his healthy side.

“Thank you…” The words aren’t any louder than a whisper, barely audible in the quiet night.

His only answer is a contented purr that sounds so loud in the silence. With a pained groan, the general allows himself to sink deeper into his bed.

“I just wish Jiyan could do it himself, he could do better with his eyes closed.”

He lays his hand on the soft fur, the rumbling sound stops for a moment so that the cat can pull his coarse tongue over Geshu Lin’s wrist for a moment before snuggling back in and continuing.

They both fall asleep to the sound of purring.

***

When Geshu Lin wakes, his arm is dead and buzzing painfully in response when he tries to move his fingers. There is something heavy on his shoulder and an insistent tickling in his nose that refuses to go away, no matter how many times he tries to get rid of it by making a wide array of ridiculous faces. He is too exhausted to open his eyes and summon his forte to see anything in the darkness, and the mere thought of moving to flick the lamp on the bedside table on makes him bone tired. He will if he really has to but he just wants to sleep without fucking tickles. He raises his hand and brushes away the thing bothering him before gently touching his fingers to whatever it is that lies on his shoulder. They hit hair. The cat? No, the strands are long and eventually, as he follows them, his fingers move over someone’s jawline. The person is breathing deeply, clearly asleep, lying peacefully on him as if he is the most comfortable pillow in existence.

Thousands of questions run through his mind, starting with what the fuck and ending with what the actual fuck. How could someone be in his rooms, to begin with? The only person who ever had access to them was dead, and he had most certainly locked the door. There is no way anyone could have entered without him knowing. Besides that, there isn't a single person in this world who would bother to break into his rooms for the sole sake of using him as some kind of glorified pillow. Most of them would run in the opposite direction should anyone even suggest it.

He collects the last remnants of energy he has left and summons a small ball of fire, the purple flames crackling to life, floating right in front of the person's face. Geshu Lin’s heart stops, freezes mid-beat before fluttering back to life, hammering wildly against his ribs as if trying to break free of its shackles. In the flickering light, he recognizes the man sleeping against his shoulder. His red eyeliner is smudged, a bit of grime staining his skin here and there, melting together with the blooming bruises. His lips are chapped, a small cut in the corner of his lower one. The hair that had felt like silk under his touch looks downright messy. The most jarring fact about it all: his beloved Vice General Jiyan is utterly naked, resting on top of the blanket instead of under it. Bruises of varying intensity paint his skin in crude shades of yellows and purples. There are deep cuts that had scabbed over around his wrists, going up almost half of his arms. 

Geshu Lin shakes his head slightly, blinking his eyes repeatedly. He is losing his goddamn mind to dream about him like that. It isn’t the first time, not even close, but the man has always been awake in his dreams and never in such a bad shape. Is his damn brain really trying to create an illusion that he could come back? That’s even worse than imagining him dead in hundreds of different ways…

He tries to turn towards Jiyan so he can tuck him under the other edge of the blanket at least, but the sharp stab of pain in his stomach makes him stop, gritting his teeth together to stop the groan from escaping. No matter how realistic his dreams are, he has never felt pain in any of them, no matter what happens. He isn’t dreaming… Has he really lost it? Is he truly so far gone that his mind is creating hallucinations now? No, that can’t be it. 

But doesn’t that mean that Jiyan, the real, breathing and very much naked Jiyan, is currently pressed against his side, his leg thrown over the general's own, hand curled around him almost protectively? None of this makes any sense. How can a dead man come back to life and in such a compromising way at that? He tries to wiggle his dead arm out from under the other’s body weight, when it is finally free from Jiyan's actually quite a sharp shoulder bone, he reaches over the man, ignoring the burning pain in his stomach and drags the damn blanket over him.  

The other man seems to stir for a moment and Geshu Lin freezes in the spot, he doesn't even dare to breathe as the other snuggles closer to him, almost curling in around him. When he finally settles down again into sleep Geshu cards his fingers through the long strands falling all over his bed.

“How are you here, how can you…” The words are a mere whisper, but he doesn’t get to the end of his line of thought before his breath hitches in that horrible way that has grown awfully familiar to him already. He presses his trembling lips against the crown of Jiyan’s head, muffling his cries into his hair. He hugs him closer to himself, carding his hands over the hair, carefully detangling a few knots he hits. He tries his best to keep quiet, but the slight trembling of his body and the short gasping breaths give away the tears trailing down his face and disappearing into the teal-coloured hair.

It takes a while before the tears subside, yet the shakiness remains. The man doesn’t stir even when he presses a light kiss right between his eyebrows. He keeps holding the other close to himself, trying to convince his mind that Jiyan is there, warm, alive. The mess of emotions inside him keeps trying to pull him under the dark waves. The tickling of Jiyan’s breath against his bare skin serves as a good reminder, helping him keep himself afloat in the grief and relief threatening to consume him whole. The man against his shoulder moves briefly, nuzzling against his skin just like the little bastard had done quite so often.

“You truly are like a cat, aren't you?” His voice is still shaky, rough from crying, but there is a small smile on his face that even reaches his eyes.

A long, silent moment passes as he admires the scenery, carefully brushing some of the dirt away from Jiyan’s cheek with his thumb. It takes him a long moment to realize that a certain constant of his nights is missing. There is no animal in the room, and like a speeding train, the reality hits him full force, the puzzle pieces fit together almost perfectly. How did the little bastard know where Jiyan’s last location had been? How the hell could he understand him, the glares, the loud nagging, the embarrassment at seeing him almost naked, all of it fits together. 

“Oh sentinel above, I confessed to the man I love while he was a cat…”

He slaps a hand over his eyes and tries by all means to ignore the embarrassment burning on his cheeks. This couldn’t possibly get any worse. The things he had said about him to his face, he had seen the toll the possibility of Jiyan’s death had taken on him, he had witnessed things that he would never have willingly told Jiyan. He wants to disappear into the night, to allow the ground to swallow him whole. Yet it is quite clear that there is no way in hell he could possibly get out of this bed without waking Jiyan up. He remains where he is, his mind running a mile a minute, giving him absolutely no possibility to seek sleep again. Every ounce of exhaustion he had felt before disappeared into the night as if it never existed. 

So it comes to be that Geshu Lin stares at Jiyan’s peaceful face, deeply lost in thought until the sun starts to rise and the first rays peak in from the window. The golden hue paints the man sleeping on his shoulder like the most ethereal painting to ever exist. By all means, he looks like a god, his skin so warm, the teal of his hair contrasting with the golden glow of the light gracing him. The general’s mouth runs dry and all he can manage is look, mapping every small detail, memorising them carefully. And he had thought he was pretty when he was fighting, his body moving like it was presenting a deadly dance. Nothing could hold a candle to what he looked like, peacefully asleep on his shoulder in the morning light. If falling in love all over again was possible, then this was it. He really must get his hands on some colours in the near future. He needs to make this scene eternal, even if he could never do justice to the man’s beauty.

Gently, he brushes some of the wayward hair out of his eyes, his touch soft, barely brushing against him. He runs his fingers over the other’s cheekbone, his jaw, down his neck and over his collarbone peaking from underneath the blanket, over his bare shoulder and carding finally into his hair. Oh, how he wishes he could hit pause and stay in this moment for eternity, just basking in the warmth and beauty of the other man. 

However, all good things must come to an end, and sooner than ever expected. Jiyan stirs as the insistent sun keeps shining right into his closed eyes. And Geshu Lin watches the expressions on his face go through as he wakes. Only when golden eyes look straight into his, still hazy with sleep does he come to his senses, mentally beating himself up to finally stop staring at the other as if he has nothing better to do than be a goddamn creep.

“I guess I can call the search party back now?” His voice is rough from the morning and the tears he had shed. He sure hopes that it isn’t obvious he had cried - again - surely it would make Jiyan feel worse than he already must. The other, though, shows no indication of waking up, instead, he snuggles in closer to him like a cat, nuzzling into his skin, eyes closed again. It takes him a moment before his mind actually registers what was told to him and what form his body has actually taken, his eyes immediately snap open again, staring at his own palm resting on top of the general’s chest, his fingertips brushing against bare skin that peeks from underneath the blanket.

To say that Jiyan learned to fly would be an understatement of the century, he leaps away from the general as if burned, his face turning a brilliant shade of red, the colour travelling down his neck and chest. That’s all Geshu Lin sees before Jiyan overbalances and falls off the bed with a loud crash. He scrambles up immediately, hissing in pain but deciding to power through it anyway, ignoring the feeling of blood seeping through his bandages at the obviously too fast and sharp movement that must have ripped one of the sutures. He grabs the blanket and wraps it around Jiyans naked form as soon as he reaches his side. He is hiding his face in his hands, teal hair falling around him like a curtain. 

“I would have thought you to be wise enough not to confuse which set of limbs you have.”

“Shut up…” Jiyans voice is barely above a whisper as he mumbles his answer.

“That jump was impressive, though, most soldiers don't manage even half of it.”

Jiyan merely curls more into himself, clearly wishing to just have the ground swallow him up.

“I'm merely jesting, come on, there are surely more comfortable places to sit.” If he were perfectly well, he would lift the other off the floor and back onto the bed, no questions asked, but the probability of him making his own situation worse and possibly harming Jiyan in the process is too great to take the risk. He has already managed to tear one of his messy sutures, judging by the amount of blood coming from his wound, soaking his bandages with unimaginable speed. He presses his hand onto the wound, applying subtle pressure to keep the goddamn blood where it should be. His breath hitches slightly at the pain immediately zipping through him.

Jiyans head snaps up at the sound and his gaze zeroes in on the wound painting Geshu Lin’s hand and stomach red.

“Get on the bed and lie down right now! What on earth were you thinking, not going to a medic to get that looked at!”

Jiyan forgets the state of his undress and embarrassment as if neither had ever existed, he wraps the blanket around himself, right under his arms, to leave them free for movement. With practiced hands he bares the mess to the air to see.

“I certainly hope that whoever did those stitches isn't a medic. They would get someone killed like this.” He grumbles as he digs through the first aid kit he picked up from the ground, cuts all of the remaining stitches through as well and starts cleaning the wound, preparing the skin.

“When did you even get it? Don’t you know that proper care as soon as possible is extremely important? I’m absolutely certain I have told you before that the longer the wound remains open, the greater the chance of infection. Do you really care so little that you can’t even be bothered to listen to what I’m talking to you about?”

“It wasn't opened, it was stitched.” He argues automatically.

“With how badly done those were, it might as well have been open.” 

Geshu Lin closes his eyes and smiles lightly, ah, the good old nagging Jiyan. The man keeps talking, but the general is too busy with his own mind to worry about what he is saying. Everything is right in the world once more. 

“Hey! Stop ignoring me when I’m talking to you, sentinel knows you’ll get yourself killed with negligence when it comes to your injuries if you don’t even listen !”

“I’ll start listening when you start saying something I haven’t heard before.”

With that, he closes his eyes again and tunes out the exact words of Jiyan’s nagging, just enjoying the sound of his voice and feeling like he is alive again. He has no idea how to bring up any of what Jiyan witnessed as a cat. It seems he doesn’t remember the wound and the suturing he had forced Geshu Lin to give it. He probably doesn’t remember a thing the general had told him either. And if Jiyan doesn’t remember, what good would it do to bring it up at all? Better let the sleeping dragon rest. There was no reason to thrust the mess of his feelings onto the other when there was no sun under which he would deserve Jiyan to begin with. What right did he have to want to love the other so closely? He will bury his feelings back in his soul, where he had hidden them for years and cherish the memories he now holds. He will love him from afar and give him the chance to be happy. 

He wakes from his thoughts when Jiyan taps his face sharply.

“Not dead, stop hitting me,” he grumbles.

“Well start acting alive then! Make sure to hold off on all strenuous activities for at least a week.” Geshu Lin continues to stare at the ceiling, unless something unexpected pops up there isn’t enough tacet discord activity to require immediate fighting, he has taken care of it for a long while now. 

Jiyan taps him on the face again, and with a soft growl, he catches the other’s wrist in his grip, barely wrapping his fingers around it, scared that he would hurt him if he touches his arms harder than that.

“Stop hitting me already”

“Then please, do tell me what I just told you!”

“No strenuous activity for a week, I’m injured, not deaf.”

Jiyan huffs and tells him to sit up slowly. He follows the orders and waits patiently as Jiyan wraps his waist in bandages quickly and effectively. His eyes scan over the rest of his body and stop and furrowing at the dirty bandages on his hand. He unravels it, inspecting the already scabbed-over wounds. He scoffs at the biggest ones slightly.

“You do know that there is a high possibility that some of those will scar, right?”

He merely shrugs his shoulder slightly.

“Scar tissue is horrible for mobility!”
“I know, heard that one before. Thrice today.”

As soon as Jiyan finishes, Geshu Lin is off the bed and taking purposeful steps towards his closet. There are a few items of clothing in there that don’t immediately scream General Geshu Lin. He fishes them out, estimating them lightly, they should fit Jiyan just fine, perhaps slightly big. Surely, they are fine enough, so he can return to his quarters and rest, maybe take care of his own wounds properly if he would rather not use more of the supplies here. Geshu Lin would offer to help, but the sentinel above knows that Jiyan would think of it as a murder attempt. The general isn't exactly known for his medical prowess after all.

“These should fit you. Feel free to wash up here and take care of your wounds.”

Jiyan nods slightly, takes the clothes from him and the first aid kit from the bed and disappears into the bathroom. A solid half an hour later - during which Geshu Lin hasn’t even gotten up from his bed where he had lain again as soon as the other man left, lost deep in thought - Jiyan emerges from the bathroom. His hair is still wet, a few droplets here and there falling from it, some of them rolling down his face and neck. Geshu Lin catches himself following one of those till it disappears underneath the collar of his shirt. He feels his mouth go dry at the sight of Jiyan in his clothes. He swallows roughly, trying to gather his wits enough to actually be of use in a conversation. Jiyan lays the folded blanket back on the bed, thanks him and is out of the room before Geshu Lin can even think of answering him. He stares at the closed door for a while, mourning the cat and his company, which he had grown so used to over time. He is already missing Jiyan himself as well, but this time he at least knows for sure that the other is alive and well. He knows that the man isn't suffering.

With a sigh, he gets dressed and makes his way into his office. Guess he can have some mercy on the poor bastards he had sent out there. He wonders how many of them will return, will they even dare to look him in the eye after what they have done? He sends them a message, ordering them to report back to his office immediately. He could have told them that Jiyan was found all healthy and well, but he would rather have them endure the torment just for a while longer. He wants them to suffer for abandoning a superior officer in a situation like that. For daring to come back and say that they lost Jiyan and none of them had thought even for a moment to follow him where they lost him to verify the status of their commanding officer. For daring to ignore a direct order in favour of frivolous pastimes.

By the time the knock sounds on his office door, the sun is already starting to set. Hmm, they sure took their sweet time to come. He won't believe for a moment that they had actually abandoned their camp and moved far enough to warrant this amount of arrival time. Perhaps they slightly changed the location after the TDs paid them a surprise visit, but surely not far enough. They have the fucking gal to try to fool him into believing they gave their best. He wishes he could cause enough harm to make them wish that they had never been born to begin with, but he knows that murdering them in his own office with Jiyan on the premises is a poor move. For their misfortune, he has had the entire day to think about how to make their lives hell without bringing Jiyan's wrath down on himself. There is a long list of issues he wants to discuss with them. He opens his drawer and lines up seven little matchboxes on his table.

“Enter!”

Three soldiers shuffle into his room and form an orderly line in front of his desk. He raises his eyebrow. That's worse than he expected.

"And the rest of you?”

“Fell in battle against a group of Tacet Discords, sir!” the first in line reports. Hmm, none of them are the unofficial heads of the group that he had sent out, it seems all of the ones calling the shots were missing. Fate truly knows who needs the trampling, doesn't she.

“I won't need these then,” he says and removes four of the matchboxes. The soldiers in front of him look almost like they've seen a ghost.

“And the status of your task?”

“No sign of Vice General Jiyan, sir!” They don't look as confident, or cocky as they did when they walked into his office. The very familiar fear is filling their eyes that he had seen after the scene the TDs had painted. He will make them feel that fear ten times worse if it is the last thing he does. The pure white rage that had consumed him once already simmers under his skin. Had Jiyan actually died, none of them would leave his office alive. But he had protected them from certain death once already, and he most certainly wouldn't appreciate the fresh bodies in the morgue. He wouldn't put it above Jiyan to add the general's own body to the list himself should he start slaughtering his soldiers.

“And can you quote to me what I said about coming back empty-handed?” Slowly, he stands, his hands braced on the desk.

He enjoys seeing them cower like that, especially when they have absolutely earned it. 

“Quote it!”

“Not to come back empty-handed…” The bravest of the cowards mumbles under his nose. 

“And did you bring the matchboxes you want me to send to your mothers or will these do?” His forte sparks against his hands, burning the desk with visible flames.

“Sir, please, we gave our best!” Pitiful cowards.

“Then how come I have several reports from other soldiers saying you stayed in the exact same camp for the entire time? You sat in one place and what? Expected Vice General Jiyan to find you ? Is that it?”

None of them answers him, their eyes staring at their toes, none of them man enough to own up to their mistakes.

“Oh, right, you were too busy playing cards and drinking yourselves into a stupor to even keep proper watch, is that why half of you are dead? Your own stupidity. Not only couldn't you bother to listen to anything I've taught you, you decided yourselves to be above me.”

It is clear as day that they fear him, perhaps more than they had feared the TDs - they can't raise their blade against him, but they rightfully don't trust him not to raise his. Foolish boys, he wouldn't even need his claymore to have them dead should he give in to the temptation.

“Answer me! Who do you think you are to ignore a direct order?”

“What good would it have done anyway? No one can survive that fall. You’re just trying to make yourself feel better about his death.” Geshu Lin's head whips towards the soldier that stands at the end of the row, without ever removing his eyes from the man who quite quickly must realize his fuck up as he turns whiter than a sheet and childishly clamps a hand over his mouth. His hands start shaking harder with each step the general takes towards him. He stops when he is standing right in front of him, quickly he bows his head, going back to staring at his shoes. Geshu Lin grabs him by his throat, his fingers digging painfully into the other's skin. Not enough to actually strangle him, but enough to serve as a very painful and most likely bruising reminder.

“You were given an order, no one asked for your opinion. You are to fulfil the orders given to you or die trying . Am I clear?”

He doesn't bow towards the shorter man, dragging him upwards till he is nose to nose with him, his feet barely touching the ground. The soldier tries to nod, but the grip on him makes it almost impossible. He can feel him swallow nervously against his hand. Coward.

“Fortunately for you, Vice General Jiyan was found alive and he has advised me not to make use of the matchboxes I've prepared.”

“Then why are we even here, if you aren't going to kill us and the medic is back home?” Hmm, another one that really wants a closer look at the general, huh? Unceremoniously, he drops the soldier currently in his grasp, and the man crumbles to the floor in front of him into a pitiful heap. He turns his attention towards the next one.

“Just because he has had the kindness in his heart to advise against it, doesn't mean I have decided to follow said advice.” He says, standing right in front of the cowering bastard that had dared to make the comment. He can’t even look the general straight in the eye. 

“You left your commanding officer to suffer through sentinel knows what just because you assumed he was dead. He had to go through hell on earth while you had a party and didn’t even bother to think about him. No matter what you seem to believe, you are not above the orders given to you.”

He steps closer to him, noticing that the man immediately flinches back slightly. Not enough to move his feet, but it is still obvious.

“Tell me, recruit, how the hell am I supposed to trust the fate of Jinzhou in your hands if I can’t trust you to do something as simple as follow an order?”

They all keep staring at the floor, not a single word passing their lips.

“First of all, you will immediately find Vice General Jiyan, and I expect you all to convey your heartfelt apologies to him. And secondly, you are to report for training at five tomorrow. Captain Yhan has orders to make your morning as delightful as physically possible.”

He looks at them shivering in front of him like newborn puppies, the curl of his lips all but pleasant.

“What are you standing here for, that was an order! I don’t need  a reason to have you dead, so be glad I’m feeling benevolent and get out before I change my mind and gift your mothers a new matchbox to admire.” 

They make themselves scarce at top speed, a bunch of boors, not even saluting him or saying goodbye. He sits back behind his desk and carefully packs away the matchboxes, who knows, he might still need them one day. He pulls out the folders on the surviving soldiers and makes a mark on every one of their files: “unfit for active duty. Reason: insubordination.” They’ll get the news once they have made it through Yhan’s training as the general’s last gift. Next, he picks three clean papers and writes short letters to the mothers. He won’t send them matchboxes but he will tell them exactly what their sons had done, amplifying the extent of Jiyan’s suffering just a bit - he sure hopes that being a cat in his company isn’t actually that bad - but making it extremely clear, that Jinzhou could not rely on these men to keep her safe. All of them are going back home as disgraced soldiers, and the only way worse to go back is to not go at all. They will all get a better beating from their mothers than what he could ever dish out without upsetting Jiyan too much.

There, he has now defended his beloved’s honour in an official capacity as well, he can finally rest. The exhaustion from the previous night was catching up with him almost out of nowhere. Though not committing murder had surely taken more of his energy than he actually had to spare. He leaves his office and purposefully walks towards his rooms, but takes a completely wrong turn in the hallway. He softens his steps till they are hardly audible and stops in front of Jiyan’s door. Someone is moving inside, humming lightly. Good, he is still alright, still alive. That is all he needed to know. Without bothering the other, he turns on his heel and makes his way to his own rooms. He wipes himself down with a wet cloth, doing his best not to disturb the bandages Jiyan had tied and finally curls up in his bed. The blanket still mildly smells of Jiyan, but his bed feels so horribly empty, his side remains cold no matter what. At one point, he even wonders if lighting a flame with his forte would be good enough of a substitute, but surely he can’t keep the fire burning safely and sleep at the same time. He isn’t really fond of the thought of accidentally burning himself to dust. By the time he manages to fall asleep, the sun is starting to rise, and the long restful night he had expected has flown by. Ah, an hour is still better than none.

And so it goes for a week. He eats, he works, he does everything that is expected of him, he starts doing his paperwork again, even going as far as redoing some of it that he had half-assed long before. And he sleeps. Or tries to. The dark circles underneath his eyes grow darker with each night, his mood almost worse than the week before. He is happy alright, and couldn’t be more delighted to see Jiyan moving around the camp, people wishing him well constantly. He is glad to see the bruises on his face fade away, and if his mind wonders about the ones around Jiyan’s torso, wonders about the state of his wrists that are hidden underneath his armguards, then no, it doesn’t. He has no right to him, he reminds himself, buries himself deep under self-depreciation just to try to quench the yearning in his heart. He has avoided Jiyan, not that it is obvious to anyone else, but he has been scheduling himself around him, passing close but never meeting. Even his orders for him to rest and busy himself with some camp matters had been delivered via the terminal instead of face to face. It seems like Jiyan has tried to talk with him, but he has found an excuse to leave before the other actually manages to make his way over every time. It hurts, but it is better this way, neither of them gains anything from him being so hung on Jiyan. 

It all comes to a head with a sharp knock on his door. The hour is late, sun set a while ago, leaving behind only the dark sky and he wonders who the hell could it be, don’t they have better things to do? 

“What the hell do you want?” he asks, hoping that whoever it is, gets cold feet and leaves him the fuck alone already.

“General Geshu Lin, may I speak with you for a moment? It is urgent.”

Jiyan. Of course. He should have expected it, oh, he is so getting cornered in his own office, because Jiyan won’t leave even if he has to wait outside the door the entire night. Or even if he somehow does make it to his rooms, Jiyan has access to those as well. Should his patience run thin, there isn’t a single place in this camp where he could hide from him. For a brief moment, he considers if jumping down the window and disappearing into the night is a sound course of action. But that sounds like it will merely delay the inevitable. He would rather get cornered here and not in his bedroom, the ground here is just a notch more neutral.

“Enter. What do you have to report?”

He paints his voice indifferent even though his eyes scan over Jiyan the moment he enters the room, quickly cataloguing everything in his mind. His mouth runs dry, Jiyan is wearing the button-up he had given him to wear that day and its not doing any favors for Geshu Lin's ability to hold himself in check.  Besides that, Jiyan looks utterly exhausted, as if he too has had trouble sleeping lately.

“The only thing I have to report is that you are an absolute asshole, sir .” Jiyan doesn’t raise his voice, but his words hit as if he were brandishing a whip, and the honorific is most certainly not honourable. Geshu Lin’s brows furrow.

“Excuse me?” His voice is low, close to dangerous. Jiyan might have privileges no one else does, but not even he can insult him unless he can actually provide a sufficient explanation. Knowing his Vice General, he wouldn’t be surprised if he has a written list, and he most definitely had at least three well-thought-out reasons before he even decided to come here… 

“You say you regret the way you treated me, say that you love me, say that you miss me, and the moment I am back, you pretend I don’t exist. So tell me, why did you lie to me?” Jiyan walks closer until the only thing separating them is the desk, he leans over it, supporting his weight on the wood, his hands in the exact spot where merely a week ago he had burned his own shapes into it, Jiyan’s are smaller he notices, before he forcefully tears his eyes away from them, now is not the time to get lost in dreamland, especially over a slight size difference between them.

He is so close when he asks: “Tell me, do you even love me, or was it just your guilt consuming you?”

His voice is almost silent, merely a whisper in the night, and looking into Jiyan’s eyes he realizes that he had managed to fuck up. Again. His eyes are just a bit too shiny to be natural, but no tears fall. Why is it that no matter what he does, all he ever ends up achieving is hurting the only person in this world he gives a fuck about? He wants what is best for him, and in the end, all he manages is the worst.

“I do,” he whispers. It is the truth. He loves him so badly that it consumes him whole. He feels like he is drowning whenever Jiyan is away from him for too long. The man had seen him weep for him for days on end, how can he still doubt? Jiyan’s mind had always worked in mysterious ways that almost never made sense to the general, perhaps this too is one of those instances.

“Then why the hell are you running away like a coward?”

He jumps up from his chair, his hands on the desk, fingers almost touching, his nose mere inches from Jiyan’s. 

“Because I don’t fucking deserve you! Look in the mirror, Jiyan! You are worth a shit ton more than whatever I have to offer! No matter how hard I try, I'm not sure I am able to love you like you should be loved.”

His eyes widen and he opens his mouth to say something, but Geshu Lin interrupts him again, softly leaning his forehead against Jiyan's.

“You deserve the world and not a broken man that keeps hurting you. No matter what I do, eventually, it will hurt you, and I hate myself for it more with each passing moment. I don’t want to, I don’t mean to, and it still happens. I keep trying to do what’s best for you and each time I fuck up worse than before. You don’t deserve to suffer because of my love.”

Jiyan's hand cups his cheek, stroking his thumb under Geshu Lin's eye.

“You really should follow your own goddamn advice occasionally. You didn't even ask what I wanted, you just assumed. Fuck what you think I deserve, you're the only one I want.”

“Jiyan…”

Jiyan presses his closed mouth briefly against Geshu Lin's before the general moves his head away. He wants to kiss him so badly, wants to let the fever of this passion consume him, burn through him until there is nothing left of him anymore, but he really can't do this to Jiyan.

“I don't want to hurt you like this.”

“Don't you think it would hurt worse if you keep pushing me away and torturing both of us like this?” He caresses the general's jaw, raising his head just enough to look into the golden eyes.

“I've seen more of you than I should have, you have said things that I can never get out of my mind. You speak of me as if I'm something divine, and those words will haunt me forever. You say you don't know how to love, yet what you feel for me runs deeper than anything I’ve ever seen before. Don't you think that I know exactly what I'm asking for? That I know what I am getting myself into, trying to love you? Because I do, Geshu Lin, I do, and I would still choose you over and over again. You don't have to be like someone else to deserve me, you just have to be yourself. I love you and no one else. My heart belonged to you - only you - long before my stint as a cat, and if that doesn't tell you how badly I want you, I'm not sure what else would. ”

“Okay.” Geshu Lin whispers, the last of his restraints falling away. He sure had decided to love a very convincing man…

“ But ! If I ever hurt you, do with me whatever you see fit as a punishment, don't just endure because whatever noble ideas you have taken into that pretty head of yours, alright.”

“Deal.” He whispers, pressing a light kiss against Geshu Lin’s cheek before shoving him back with enough force that the general stumbles and lands back in his chair. He can't even protest properly before he has a lapful of heaven. Jiyan's hands are on his shoulders, his legs sinking into the chair right next to his own as he sits down in his lap as if he belongs there and only there.

“I didn’t think I was that irresistible," he laughs, his voice sounding more confident than he actually feels, his heart keeps beating in his chest as if it is trying to break free. Jiyan will definitely be the death of him eventually.

“Shut up,” he crumbles, a light colour on his cheeks, right before pressing his lips against Geshu Lin’s. Properly this time. His brain short-circuits, fingers twitching against the air as he feels like heaven has descended upon him. He manages to wrangle his wits back under his control just as Jiyan pulls away from him once more.

“General, won’t you show me how much you love me, how badly you want me?” he whispers against his skin. He knows Jiyan is teasing him, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work exactly as intended.

“Are you sure?” 

“Never been more sure of anything in my life. Show me, please.” Jiyan drags out the last word before laughing. His eyes shine, but not with tears but pure happiness instead. And he is weak, drawn to the other man like a moth to flame. Geshu Lin grabs him by the throat, his fingers pressing into the skin as he pulls him back down and swallows the slight moan that escapes Jiyan's lips with his own. He kisses him like he is the air, and he is breathless. His other arm wraps around Jiyan's waist and pulls him closer until they are pressed so close that there is no room left between them. He kisses him till he can no longer breathe and even when he pulls back to allow access to oxygen he doesn't stop trailing kisses over Jiyan's jawline, and down his neck, until he is mouthing at the collarbone, barely peeking from underneath his shirt, hiding the rest of his skin from view. His fingers trail over the shirt-covered tacet mark on the other's back, and the trembling moan that escapes Jiyan is like fuel to fire. He licks into the other's still open mouth before capturing his lips in another heady kiss.

His hand slips down from Jiyan's neck, running over the entire length of his torso, until it joins the other one on Jiyan's hips. He digs his hands under the other's shirt, trailing them upwards over hot skin. Jiyan does something unexpected, with practised ease he opens two of the upper buttons and drags the entire offending cloth over his head, tossing it over his shoulder, not even noticing it fall on Geshu Lin's desk and surges back in for a kiss. His hands dig into the general’s hair, pulling on it slightly. Geshu Lin grabs him by the hips and lifts him effortlessly onto the table. Pushing until Jiyan is lying flat on top of his paperwork, he trails open-mouthed kisses down his skin, dragging his teeth against his neck. He lets his hands wander, running them up Jiyan's side, feeling him tremble underneath him, his mouth opens in an almost silent gasp as Geshu kisses his chest.

A sharp knock on the door interrupts them, and Geshu Lin all but growls, the sound menacing. 

“Is it urgent?”

“Well, not really, sir, but…” 

“Then get lost, I'm too busy to entertain you! Find Vice General Jiyan if you really need to make that report tonight.” he has the audacity to smirk at Jiyan, who is trying to stifle his heavy breathing behind his hands, a quite obvious blush painting his skin red in embarrassment at the thought of almost being caught in such a compromising position with his general.

The soldier scurries away and before his steps have faded fully Geshu Lin’s lips are back on Jiyan's neck, he bites down at one of the spots that had made the other gasp before and he is immediately graced with a surprisingly loud moan. Jiyan in return digs his hand in the white hair and pulls harshly. 

“Warn a man, will you, what if he heard!” 

“In that case, I'll make him keep his mouth shut permanently.” 

Jiyan’s hand remains in his hair, but he isn't pulling on it like that anymore, he merely tugs on it helplessly whenever Geshu Lin teases a spot too tender. One of the general’s hands trails down Jiyan's side, over his hip, grips at the flesh of his thigh and yanks him closer till their bodies are flush, hips to hips.

“Geshu, ah, Lin.”

Jiyan's voice has taken on a whiny undertone but something in the way he says his name doesn’t feel like it was intended as the moan it came out.

“Stop, please.” Geshu Lin freezes immediately, staring down at the man lying below him, and even though his mind is wondering what he did wrong, running over all of the possibilities a mile a minute, he asks:

“Yes, my dear?” 

Jiyan flushes almost immediately at the pet name, the red travelling down his neck and chest and this time Geshu Lin lets his eyes wander. Over the bite marks that so sharply contrast the white of his skin, the blush complimenting them perfectly. Jiyan's skin glistens, both from spit and sweat. And the way his eyes are hooded, he could remain here forever, staring at Jue's most magnificent creation till the end of time itself.

“Ah... I would rather not do that on top of your desk.”

Geshu Lin yearns to kiss his skin again, to lick against his rabbiting pulse before grazing his teeth against it, he can almost imagine how the man would react. But he refrains. For now.  “What exactly?” He whispers into his ear.

“I would rather not have my first time on top of important paperwork in a place where someone stupid enough can walk in at any moment.”

As an afterthought, he whispers: “It didn’t mean you should stop kissing me though,” and turns his head to the side, eyes anywhere but the general’s, a light flush on his skin.

Geshu Lin pins him down, his one hand wrapping around both of Jiyan's wrists a bit too easily, his hold careful due to the bandages still wrapped around them, his eyes are impossibly dark, and the look he gives him, that gaze in his eyes makes Jiyan weak at the knees. Thank Sentinel, he isn't standing or he would most certainly find himself on the floor instead.

“First time?”

Jiyan thumps his head against the desk, an exasperated groan escaping him.

“Of course, that is the only part of it that you retained. Like a dog with a bone, I swear.”

“Your dog.” he quips back, laughing at the face Jiyan makes. It must be the first time in a long while that he laughs and means it, the smile on his face finally reaching his eyes as well.

He does fulfil his earlier fantasy and kisses Jiyan’s neck, grazing his teeth against his pulse. He had been correct. The reaction is instantaneous and Jiyan arches into the touch with a gasp. What a magnificent creature. Gently, he bites at the man’s earlobe and tugs on it before whispering: “I wonder what they would say if I carried you to  my room like this.”

“If you wanted me to shoot you myself you should have just asked, you bastard.” 

“You love me too much to shoot me.”

“I didn't say I wouldn't stitch you back together.”

Geshu Lin laughs, pressing a few kisses against the flushed skin before tossing Jiyan's abandoned shirt right into his face.

“Get dressed before I test the strength of your threat.” he winks at the man lying beneath him.

“You wouldn't dare.”

Geshu Lin engulfs him in his arms and yanks him up off the desk, his other hand gripping his thigh, holding him up. Jiyan's legs and arms wrap around him on instinct. The additional weight pulls at the stitches in his stomach slightly, but not enough to cause any harm, so he pays it no mind. He manages three whole strides towards the door before Jiyan begs for mercy. Reluctantly, he allows the other back onto his own feet, and the pleased feeling in his stomach when he notes that Jiyan’s legs almost buckle underneath his weight goes ignored, for now. Jiyan does put his shirt back on, and even though he buttons it up to the top, a few bite marks are still visible, still, Geshu Lin can’t help but mourn the loss of view that has been hidden from him. If the man allows it, he will most certainly explore every inch of that skin. Fortunately, the gaze in his eyes is speaking loud and clear, he will allow it, if not demand it himself. And Geshu Lin will fulfil every wish like it is an order from the sentinel himself.

The walk to the general's bedroom is silent, neither of them giving voice to the thoughts swimming around in their minds, but as soon as that door closes behind them, Jiyan is pushed up against it and pulled into a deep kiss. His hands wrap around Geshu Lin's shoulders, his fingers digging into his hair, tugging on it slightly. Sentinel above, he can't get enough of him, all he ever wants is to keep kissing the man until he is physically incapable of doing so anymore. One of his hands finds its way back under Jiyan's shirt, caressing that heated skin, feeling how it slightly trembles underneath his touch, the other busies itself by blindly opening button after button, revealing that glorious sight inch by inch. With a gasp, Jiyan pulls away slightly, his breathing labored, and Geshu Lin goes back to devouring his neck while the man collects himself. He runs his palms downwards, over the other man's hips and thighs. He taps against one of them slightly, and really, it shouldn't surprise him that Jiyan follows the wordless request exactly as intended. With a slight jump and the general’s aid, he wraps his legs around Geshu Lin's waist again. He tugs on his hair, tilting his head upwards again and kissing him. He uses the moment in his favour, carrying the man to his bed and carefully laying him down on top of it. He breaks away from the kiss and pulls his own shirt off, throwing it sentinel knows where. He doesn't really care either. His stomach is still bandaged but that doesn't stop Jiyan from staring, unashamed, his eyes trail over every inch of the general's skin and as Geshu Lin is too busy admiring the beautiful creature before him, he notices him move just a notch too late and effectively finds himself laying in his own bed. He can't say he doesn't love the view. Jiyan's hair flows around him like mountain rivers, cascading down his back. He could stare until the end of time and not get enough. He doesn't get the chance, though, as Jiyan is apparently set on returning the favor. His lips trail down Geshu Lin's neck, starting from right under his ear, and he doesn't hesitate even for a moment when touching his lips and tongue to his tacet mark. The sensation zips through him like lightning, and he can't really control the knee-jerk reaction of his body as he arches up into the other man's touch. He decides to tune out the sound that escaped him, though that proves to be difficult as Jiyan apparently decided that he quite liked the reaction and refuses to leave his mark alone until he is a breathless mess under him. Only then does he lift his head from Geshu Lin's neck. His lips are slick with spit and his eyes impossibly dark. And despite that, he sits up, set on shrugging off the shirt. Before he can get it fully off, Geshu Lin grabs his arm, stopping him mid movement, the cloth hangs around his arms now, baring his shoulders to the world. Questioning eyes find his and there is just a slight note of worry in them, Jiyan's gaze flickers to his stomach briefly, before finding his again.

“Leave it on.”

All that doubt flows out of Jiyan, and he laughs, one of those beautiful ones where he leans his head slightly back, and his eyes crinkle at the corners, the one that makes Geshu Lin fall in love all over again each time he hears it.

“I figured it might help me convince you, but I didn't think it would work that well.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

***

Carefully, he wipes Jiyan's skin over with a wet cloth. It's clear that the man is utterly exhausted, his head thrown back, eyes closed, and he is slightly gasping for breath that had been stolen from him. His legs still tremble underneath Geshu Lin's careful touch, and the flush on his skin paints a most ethereal sight out of him. He presses a slight kiss against his forehead before rising from the bed.

“Get some rest, dear.”

Jiyan merely hums in answer. Not even bothering to open his eyes as the general leaves the room. He doesn't pay any attention to him when he comes back either. He cards one of his hands through Jiyan’s hair, pressing another light kiss to his face before walking off again.  Instead of getting back into bed, he takes the chair from behind his table and places it next to it instead, sitting down in it. The scribbling of a pencil fills the silence in the room, and for a while, it is the only noise accompanying Jiyan's heavy breathing. Eventually, when he looks up from the paper, his eyes meet gold. He grins at him for a moment before looking back at the paper in his hand.

“Don't tell me you are drawing me like one of your Rinascita girls.” Jiyan's voice is rough, deep from overuse.

“It won't ruin your reputation, I'll burn them.” He shrugs, not even looking up towards Jiyan and therefore entirely missing the slight smile on his face.

“Don't burn your drawings!” 

“You misunderstood, I'll burn the bastard that is stupid enough to break into my bedroom to steal them in the first place,” he says, utterly nonchalant as if he didn't threaten murder - again. His eyes flicker back up to see Jiyan melting back into the sheets. What a sweetheart, worrying about a bunch of paper.

“I could also call it drawing you like one of my Jinzhou boys instead if you like that more,” he shrugs, smiling at the man lazing in his bed like a god.

“Call it whatever, I just want to see it later.” And the golden eyes slip closed again. 

Even though Jiyan remains lying in the same position the entire time Geshu Lin draws him, his breathing deep and even, with his arm thrown over his closed eyes, his hair covering half of the bed, it is obvious he isn't asleep. He remains fully awake, waiting patiently until the general finishes. Eventually, he puts the pencil away and climbs into bed next to his beloved. Jiyan curls right into him, laying his head on his shoulder. Wordlessly, he turns the paper to face the man. His eyes scan over the lines.

“You really are like a dog,” is all Jiyan says, resting his head back on him.

“How are these things even remotely related?”

“If that is the amount of hickeys I actually have, then apologies, but I'm more thoroughly chewed up than a dog's squeaky toy.” He yawns, muffling it behind his hand before mumbling the rest of it into Geshu Lin's collarbone: “You sure love biting…” trailing off in the end, clearly in need of rest that he has refused so far.

“You didn't object, and considering that my back feels like a cat's scratching post, then you aren't any better yourself, darling.” He laughs as Jiyan's head snaps up and a slight blush paints his face red as he stares towards the general's face, his eyes wide and mouth slightly open.

“I did not!” He splutters, his expression aghast.

Geshu Lin moves, so he is sitting up next to the man and with a cheeky grin turns his back towards Jiyan. When he looks over his shoulder, the other has opted to bury his face into the pillow, turning his back to Geshu Lin in return. He chuckles lightly and wraps himself around Jiyan, holding him close and pressing a chaste kiss against his shoulder.

“No need to worry, darling, I quite like them.” 

Pressing another kiss against Jiyan's skin, he whispers: “I love the way I got them even more,” and gently grazes his teeth against the spot he had kissed, not quite biting yet, but promising it as a possibility.

Jiyan merely reaches over his shoulder and pushes his entire palm against Geshu Lin's face.

“Down, boy!”