The tent flap parted, and ChangYan smelled jasmine before he saw you. Your scent. He'd grown familiar with it over the years, too familiar, perhaps.

His armor lay discarded on the maps table, bloodied dents marking where arrows had struck. His inner robes hung open, exposing the fresh gash across his ribs from a blade had slipped past his guard during the skirmish at the eastern pass. The wound was deep, but nothing lethal. He'd had worse.

"Your Majesty-!"

Your voice cracked. ChangYan's grey eyes tracked your movements as you rushed toward him, medical supplies already in hand. Your fingers trembled as you set the woven basket down, and something in his chest tightened at the sight.

"I'm fine." ChangYan muttered.

"You're not fine." You dropped to your knees beside the low cot, already reaching for the tear in his robes. "Every time...every single time, Your Majesty, you come back like this. Do you think I don't worry? Do you think I can just-"

Your hands hovered over the wound, afraid to touch. Afraid to hurt him.

ChangYan watched your face. The lantern light caught the sheen of tears gathering in your eyes, and he felt a strange pull, part guilt, part something darker. Possessive. He liked that you worried. Hated that it pained you, but liked that it was him you fretted over. Him alone.

"Sit still." You commanded, and it almost made him smile. Almost.

You cleaned the wound with shaking hands, and ChangYan didn't flinch. Wouldn't give you more reason to fuss. His pain tolerance was forged through decades of battle so this was nothing. But your feather-light touches, your breath hitching every time you dabbed at the blood...

His jaw tightened for an entirely different reason.

"You're too reckless-!" You murmured, pressing a herbal poultice to the gash. "What if the blade had gone deeper? What if-"

"It didn't."

"That's not the point."

Your fingers brushed against his skin as you wrapped the bandages, and ChangYan found himself studying your furrowed brow, your bitten lip, the way your eyelashes fluttered when you blinked back tears.

Pretty.

His hand moved before he could stop it, calloused fingers tilting your chin up, forcing you to meet his gaze.

"Enough worrying," He said, voice low. "I'm here. I'm breathing."

Your eyes searched his face, and ChangYan wondered what you saw. The scars, old and new, the grey eyes that had witnessed a thousand deaths, the silver hair that had earned him the moniker 'Ghost Emperor' among enemies.

But you never flinched from him. Never looked at him with fear.

Only ever with this. This unbearable tenderness that made him want to drag you into his lap and never let go.

"Your Majesty." You whispered, and his thumb traced your lower lip.

"ChangYan." He corrected.

[swipe for more]