I dislike putting notes in the beginning of fics, but this one is necessary.

I beg of you please read it to the end of this chapter, just this chapter, I beg of you please, please, please. Don't hit the back button, please! Please just bear with me in this chapter! Quick read if you desire so! It's really not that long and if it wasn't worth your time you can yell at me.

In the morning, Ling Tong fights. He duels men of straw and hemp, creatures sewn by the dozen out of scrap material. None of them are capable of putting up any more fight than the natural resistance of substance. But that is more than can be said of some men, their cousins of bone and blood.

He leaps at them with vigor, his eyes edged in their narrow slant and his lips pulled slightly open against his teeth, his weapons ripping the air and shattering sound.

As he shouts, there is no question about what he sees.

"Hah! Gan Ning, you'd better try and keep up!" Ling Tong shouts, his voice sharp and fierce, forged in the heat of competitiveness.

The young Chen Rui, better known by his Taoist name Qiulu, watches carefully from the sidelines. "He is skilled," he says, fanning himself with his sleeves. "A worthy adversary for any king or pirate? I can see why you delight in watching him."

Gan Ning does not respond. But his head shifts slightly, narrowing the angle between it and the armored arms on which it rests, and a hand lazily slides on the wooden fence.

"Yes, delight. He is quite something, is he not? It was probably worth leaving your old life, General Pirate, just to have such a man as this by your side…" He smiles and looks over at Gan Ning.

From his position, Ling Tong can only sense the two men in the softness of his peripheral vision. But a lifetime of war and raging arrows has honed his side sight well. A sudden motion snags in that sight, and he pauses to reign in his breath just in time to see the Taoist fleeing, stumbling over his own robes in his haste. But he pays Qiulu no mind.

"Ning, what's the matter, scared already? And I've only just started!" he yells.

At noon, Ling Tong settles and sits down for tea and a light lunch with the others.

He yawns like a cat, rolling his neck in the warmth of his customary pool of sunlight. From the open windows, the warm day and the bright sky float through the room, coming to nestle in every fold, every line, every surface of the room.

"Pass us the sausage," Ling Tong demands, leaning over to tap Lu Xun on the shoulder.

The youthful commander turns to him and ducks shyly at his touch. "Uh." He clears his throat and clumsily grabs the required dish. Lu Xun hands it over without meeting Ling Tong's impatient eyes.

"Thanks."

Ling Tong takes half of the sausage left and pushes the dish next to him, over to Gan Ning.

There is a silence in the room that melts in with the sunlight, creating a sort of soft cushion in space, save for the sharp little ticks of Ling Tong's chopsticks against ceramic.

A while later, Sun Quan coughs uncomfortably. "Ling Tong… I was wondering…" the Lord of Wu begins, but stops.

"Yeah?" Ling Tong asks. His eyes are closed and he has tangled a hand in the black feathers behind Gan Ning's neck.

"Nevermind."

The young man opens one smug eye. "Hmm? No really, what?"

"Nothing. It's nothing."

In the afternoon, Ling Tong works on his reports and forms.

His lips are pursed as if he is sucking on something sour, and his eyes are half-lidded. One hand grips a brush, moving sporadically across his papers.

In the room, the quiet hangs in the air with only a slight undercurrent of the brush's soft swishing and the rustling of papers.

Lucky bastard, Ling Tong thinks. Sun Quan didn't assign him much did he? Why do I have so much more work? Maybe I shouldn't have procrastinated so much last week…

He is hard at work, occasionally looking up to glare at the pirate seated at the other end of the table.

Ling Tong dislikes paperwork. He does. But even as he looks down, the scarlet shape in the very edges of field of vision is reassuring. And, well, he… He supposes he really, really likes having that constant bit of red just in his sight. Just to know that he is not alone. Just knowing that Gan Ning is around, just to sense that he is present, just that is enough to bring a bit of a warmth in his chest.

He swallows a smile. It won't do for the pirate to see him grinning over paperwork.

The door opens quietly, and Jiang Qin walks in.

"Ling Tong, I- oh, huh." He looks surprised to see the other ex-pirate sitting with Ling Tong in such a boring task.

"What is with you pirates and never knocking?" Ling Tong snorts, rolling his eyes and looking up from his papers.

"Us… Us pirates? And not knocking?" Jiang Qin asks as if not comprehending the question. He grips the door to steady himself, looking slightly ill.

"Yeah. Ning never knocks either…" Ling Tong glares and tosses a crumpled paper ball at Gan Ning. He wasn't really aiming and the impromptu projectile falls short of its target.

"Uh, yes." Jiang Qin ducks out and yanks the door closed.

In the evening, Ling Tong eats dinner.

Today there is a formal banquet to welcome someone's dignitaries from somewhere. Apparently it is very important, because everyone has been so tense ever since the sun dipped in the sky. Everyone with a part in the event has been as if a string pulled too taut.

The servants are on edge as their employer. They come and set dinner down for Ling Tong and Gan Ning without a word, their lips pulled tight and their eyes darting. They hustle in and hustle out in such a rush, as if his company was poisonous. But that is just another necessity of the day. The kitchens are shorthanded and the dignitaries' visit demands so much attention from all the domestic staff.

But neither Ling Tong nor Gan Ning are required for the important guests.

Sun Quan has already made it apparent that he does not wish for their presence on such a delicate and political occasion. He explained earlier, in quick words, that it was not an offense or an insult at all, not at all, but they could not afford to offend or shock anyone.

Ling Tong does not mind at all, none of it. Especially with the threat of good behavior hanging like a king's sword above his head, occasions such as this one, with the accompanying niceties and honorifics and verbal restraint, grate on his tongue. Some people have mastered the art of smiling in the face of rats and flattering with a soft tongue and a hard heart. Neither Gan Ning nor Ling Tong have.

Besides, tonight, they get their own dinner, away from the suffocating atmosphere of the formal dinner. They sit together, side-by-side, in a pavilion in the gardens.

Ling Tong is not too fickle a person. But even if he was, there really was nothing that he can find wrong with this little world. It is simply, absolutely, perfect. Absolutely nothing amiss. Not one detail. Not one little minor negligible detail.

It is beautiful. Everything is so beautiful, so good! The balmy summer night is strung with lights around them, creating a tent of glowing lights from of the pavilion. Everywhere Ling Tong looks, the lanterns bob in the air, their attachments and lines invisible against the darkness outside. Between the rows of lanterns, he can admire the deep, clear sky and the gardens shrouded beyond.

He looks at the dishes set before them hungrily. It is the same delicious food as is being served in the banquet, and it is laid out in the same way, only on a smaller, two-person scale. Meat soaking in oil and spices, vegetables dripping with rich sauce, clear delicate soups, they all made his mouth water.

A gentle breeze caresses both brown and blonde hair, and Ling Tong laughs aloud, leaning his face closer to the pirate's. He whispers in Gan Ning's ear conspiratorially.

"I'm so glad we're out here. Together. It's… It's really nice, isn't it?" he asks, at lost for words on how to describe the moment.

In the night, Ling Tong sleeps.

He unwraps himself from his thin summer's evening robe and slips under the covers, yawning.

Gan Ning is already in bed, his form a good solid weight on the other side of the bed.

Slowly, Ling Tong creeps over until his is embracing the Pirate, rubbing their bare skin together. He rests his head in the crook of Gan Ning's neck and closes his eyes.

"G'night, Ning," he mumbles before drifting off to sleep, a content smile on his face.

Just minutes later, his door creaks open, spilling a single line of light onto the couple's sleeping forms.

The first in is Sun Quan, looking as guilty as a thief. He is followed by the others: Zhou Tai, Lu Xun, Huang Gai, Cheng Pu, Yu Fan, and his other closest ministers and generals.

Upon seeing Ling Tong curled tightly against Gan Ning, he groans and whispers, "I don't know if we can do this without waking him up…"

"What do you mean, my lord?" Yu Fan whispers back, creeping forward as well. Upon seeing the bed, he blanches. "…Goodness."

"What?" Huang Gai hisses.

"He's holding onto General Gan's body very tightly," Cheng Pu explains.

"He's holding onto the corpse?" Cheng Pu snorts in surprise and looks as if he is going to lose his dinner. "Oh, heavens… Oh, heavens…"

"I already tried to take the body. He never lets it out of his sight," Sun Quan explains. "He always props it up where he can see it."

"Must he insist on parading the corpse around?" Yu Fan groans. "We're lucky that those envoys got no whiff of this…"

"Were they that close?" Yu Fan asks concernedly. "Him and…" He stops, unable to form the words, and simply gestures at the bed. "I mean… This is not quite usual behavior if you know what I mean…"

"They had just gotten together a few months before General Gan's death," Cheng Pu explains, his eyes riveted on Ling Tong's peaceful expression. "I think… I think it looks likes he took it hard and came out on the other side."

"But…" Lu Xun's high voice drifted in from the back of the group. "My lord. Truly, is this doing any harm to anyone? General Gan is probably beyond caring… And… If this is what Ling Tong needs to do, for himself… I mean, everyone grieves in a different way!"

"General Gan deserves a decent burial!" Sun Quan hisses. "Not… Not whatever this is!"

Huang Gai strides forward, and, with a determined but slightly nauseous look, reaches out with both arms and grasps the shoulders of Gan Ning's corpse. He attempts to gently lift it, but unconsciously, Ling Tong lets out a sleepy mumble and grips Gan Ning even more tightly, smiling in whatever dream he is drifting in and nuzzling the nape of the ex-pirate's neck lovingly. Huang Gai freezes, but when Ling Tong is still, the old general tugs at the corpse again, this time harder.

Gan Ning's body lifts about an inch but remains entrapped in Ling Tong's arms. But Huang Gai has forgotten what normally happens with corpses, and is unprepared for what happens next.

Decomposition has already begun to take its toll. The skin on the corpse's shoulder tear and slip right off into Huang Gai's hands. The body falls back onto the bed, two gaping hopes acting as dripping windows into the body's superficial anatomy. Ling Tong grunts in his sleep.

Huang Gai is left holding two decaying strips of human skin. But he has seen much worse on a battlefield, and aside from a choked cry and his whole body paling to match his hair, he is still.

"Oh heavens," Cheng Pu repeats.

"Let's pull back for tonight and think of a better plan," Huang Gai says calmly, still grasping the slipped skin.

"Yes. Good idea," Sun Quan says faintly. Zhou Tai grabs the lord's arm and supports his weight. With a concerned look, the stoic general starts pushing towards the door.

The others follow, until Lu Xun, the last one to leave, takes a last frightened peak at the bedroom and dashes out, closing the door quietly behind.

In the darkness, Ling Tong continues to sleep well, his arms around Gan Ning's body.

He occasionally smiles in his sleep. And he looks rather content.

In fact, he even looks happy.