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“This is stupid,” says Jin Ling, “I’m not even that injured!”
“You got pierced through the arm by a spike,” says Zizhen, whose cuffs are stained from bandaging said injury due to how much blood there had been, “we’re stopping.”
“ You’re not the one leading this nighthunt-”
“No one is leading this nighthunt and if anyone is, I vote Sizhui.”
“I’m not leading the nighthunt,” says Sizhui, from where he’s lifting their tent to nail it up to some trees. He sends Jingyi a look, and Jingyi pretends to be too distracted by their waterlogged, stained, unreadable map to notice him.
Jin Ling throws his hands up in victory and yelps because, again, his arm was pierced through by a porcupine yao. Sizhui continues, “but via group consensus, we’re stopping.”
“It’s not group, I disagree!”
“We can just let the Young Mistress go on alone,” Jingyi suggests, “I bet he’ll last an hour before he comes running back crying.”
Jin Ling growls like his dog and moves forward, probably to start fighting because nothing and no one can stop him from throwing hands, but Zizhen sighs and pulls him back with a hand on his uninjured shoulder, shooting Jingyi a different look that he also ignores, but clearly this time.
“I’ll start a fire,” says Zizhen, sighing. “Jin Ling, come help me.”
“I don’t-”
“Jin Ling.”
“...fine,” Jin Ling mutters, cheeks burning as he follows Zizhen’s direction to set down their packs and gather food for a firepit. Jingyi feels mildly worried when he sees the way his right arm is shaking even while still, but it’s quickly drowned out when Sizhui physically forces him to aid in tying ropes to nails for the tent.
“I suck at tying tents, this will be better if you do it yourself!”
“We have to tie another after this,” says Sizhui, calmly, as if Jingyi had said absolutely nothing, “can you go fetch that?”
Jingyi groans, and purposefully makes himself look extremely in pain as he sits up from where he was tying down one part of the tent. Sizhui ignores him, because he’s a cruel and terrible friend who has no respect for Jingyi’s struggles. Jingyi retaliates by turning his whole back to him as he walks back over to where Zizhen and Jin Ling have set down all their packs.
“Who was carrying the second tent again?”
“You,” calls Sizhui, and Jingyi pauses, because he most definitely was not.
“Uh.”
“What’s taking so long?” Jin Ling calls from where he and Zizhen already have a fire started. In the frigid night air, edging towards winter, it looks heavenly, but Jingyi is a bit too busy panicking to notice.
“Jingyi,” says Sizhui, “where’s the second tent?”
“Well,” says Jingyi, now not looking at anyone for a different reason, “you see.”
Sizhui walks over to him slowly. Zizhen and Jin Ling walk over to him slowly. All three of them look as if they’re going to jointly execute him, which is quite frankly unfair.
“Did you forget to bring the second tent?” Jin Ling asks, and Jingyi twists around to scowl at him, because if there’s one person he won’t take shit from it’s the Young Mistress.
“Hey, I had a lot to worry about! Do you know how many-”
“Oh my god, who cares, you had one fucking job-”
“Shut up,” says Zizhen, groaning as he rubs his forehead. “Are you saying we only have one tent? These things are fucking tiny!”
Sizhui takes a very deep breath. There’s a strained smile on his face which, aided by the sweat beaded at his forehead and the bags beneath his eyes, making him look slightly murderous. Just, like, pristine murderous, as opposed to Jin Ling, whose thin and tired face and messy hair and the blood streaked across his clothes just make him look normal-murderous, and Zizhen, who had hidden behind a tree for most of the nighthunt, who doesn’t really look murderous at all.
“Perhaps two of us could sleep outside,” says Sizhui, voice thin.
Then the sky above them rumbles, dark and heavy, and rain beats down on them from above, the droplets huge and wet and hard against their skin.
Jin Ling looks up into the rainy sky and screams.
There’s almost no space for their packs in the tent. They manage via using them as pillows, even though it bends Jingyi’s neck weird and makes him mourn at the crick he’s sure to wake up with tomorrow.
Being murderous is apparently exhausting - both Jin Ling and Sizhui are out cold, Sizhui’s face relaxed and Jin Ling’s tense even while asleep. Jingyi wonders if he’s ever relaxed in his life, or if the reason he’s so intolerable is because he’s always got his damn eyebrows knit even when he’s sleeping. He’s definitely going to get wrinkles the earliest out of all of them - Jingyi’s betting it.
Jingyi, though, even when he closes his eyes, just can’t knock himself out. He’s not sure why - the nighthunt was exhausting and they’ve been up for two days straight, so there’s no reason for him to be doing anything that’s not laying his head down and entering a coma right now, especially given how long after nine it is. Still, as he stares up at the cloth roof of the tent, weighed down with rainwater, a shadow above them, even when he closes his eyes, he can’t manage it.
“I’m surprised you’re awake,” comes a voice from nearby, and Jingyi turns until he’s facing Zizhen across from him, whose eyes are fully open and bright. Jingyi imagines hiding behind a tree isn’t all that tiring.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he shrugs, settling so his head is laid across his arm instead of his pack. That’s going to hurt his arm in the morning, but Jingyi is a brave soul who is cursed to be forever in pain and will only complain about it kind of often when they all wake up.
“Me either,” says Zizhen. The longer he’s looking at him, the more Jingyi frowns as he notes a thin line across the other boy’s cheek.
“I thought the Yao didn’t injure you or anything?”
“Oh,” says Zizhen, reaching up to touch his face. “Oh, no, I got this while running.”
“...how?”
“I scraped my face,” says Zizhen, casually, but his cheeks are turning red and he’s a shit liar (most of them are, with the awful and terrible exception of Jin Ling. Jingyi hates this).
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yes,” Zizhen scowls at him, “now shut up and sleep.”
“Uh, uh,” says Jingyi, sitting up and smirking. Zizhen glares up at him. “I want details. Details!”
“What details do you want about someone falling and scraping their fa-”
“Ha! You fell?” Jingyi snorts; loud enough they both freeze and peek to make sure Sizhui and Jin Ling are still asleep. They’re all practically pressed together from how close they all are.
“Shut up,” Zizhen snaps when they both sigh in relief that neither Sizhui (terrifying when aroused from his slumber) nor Jin Ling (a pain in the ass even when he wasn’t woken up) were woken by their noise. His face is burning, like a tomato.
“Did you trip?” Jingyi laughs, delighted when Zizhen buries his head in his hands and turns around so his back faces him at the question. He totally fucking tripped. “You’re such a loser.”
“Fuck off,” Zizhen complains to the void, “fuck off, you’ve done that but everyone saw it. It’s ingrained into everyone’s minds. No one knows about me but you, Jingyi, and no one will ever believe you, so who’s the real loser, ha?”
That’s- not-
“Fuck off that’s not how it works!” Jingyi yelps, practically on fire at the- the falsehoods, the absurdity. That’s not-
“Yes it is,” says Sizhui, and both of them freeze as they turn to look at him. Sizhui is staring at somehow both Jingyi and Zizhen at once, his eyes bloodshot. He looks as if he’s going to stab them in their sleep, and if not for the storm outside, Jingyi probably would have just run out.
“...did we wake you up?” Zizhen squeaks. Jingyi would probably make fun of him for how high his voice is if he didn’t understand. Immensely.
“Yes,” says Sizhui. His voice is even. “Go the fuck to sleep.”
Jingyi has exactly two seconds to process the fact that Sizhui just fucking swore before he’s on his back again and staring up at the tent, blanket pulled to his chin and only kind of afraid for his life.
He doesn't need to look to know that Zizhen is exactly the same. Just the sound of Sizhui settling back into bed, hopefully to go to sleep properly this time so he’s not terrifying, is enough so he knows.
For a while, they just sit in that silence - trying to fall back asleep, join the Young Mistress in actually getting some fucking rest before they have to continue their trek tomorrow. No one really moves or breathes or does anything, and Jingyi feels momentarily genuinely worried someone will just suffocate to death before he remembers his earlier, even more important and life-changing realization.
“Sizhui, did you-”
“ Sleep, Jingyi,” says Sizhui, and his voice sounds so like Hanguang-jun’s that Jingyi shuts his mouth immediately.