Chapter Text
There had been many times in the cave when Xie Lian had tried to fight back. A month in he’d given up on actually being able to leave but that didn’t stop him from making the lives of the people who’d taken him more difficult. He’d tug and pull away from them even when their knives were up against his skin, even if it meant getting hurt more than usual, because it was better than giving up and accepting what had happened to him, better than learning helplessness.
At least that had been the idea.
It was about six months in when accepting helplessness started to sound just fine with him. In the beginning they had been able to draw his blood with relative ease, slicing at the skin just barely enough to have the blood start to flow out, collect it in a glass bottle, and leave him be. It was just, well, one day he struggled too much, and accidentally kicked the bottle full of his blood out of the hand of the individual holding it, causing it to fall and shatter against the ground and have his blood splatter all over the bottom of his already stained-brown robes. He’d earned a beating for that move, and when they left he thought he’d won. When they came back with another two bottles he knew this wasn’t the case.
That day they’d taken so much blood from him that it left his limbs sluggish and his mind lethargic. It was a horrible feeling and it never truly left him from that day on. He’d never fully recovered his strength, even on feeding days, and it became harder for them to get blood out of him. It was a terrible existence to live in, much better than the coffin but so similar in some ways that it gave him chills. The cold, the silence, the solitary confinement, it was all so reminiscent and terribly mind numbing. It didn’t mean he stopped fighting but it did make him no longer a threat.
He could hear the steps from far away coming closer to him as he waited, strung up like a puppet. He wouldn’t have the energy to fight back this time, he never truly did anymore. He especially didn’t after that time they’d failed to feed him properly. Speaking of which, how long had it been since he’d been given blood? Was today feeding day or had that been last week? Fuck he hoped it was feeding day, another thing that was similar to the coffin was the gnawing hunger, though it was never this bad in the coffin, he hadn’t been left alone with it for so long. The ugly feeling crawled up his throat and he allowed it to escape for a moment of relief in the form of a whine. He hoped it was feeding day but he’d much rather them not come at all, he wasn’t in the mood to be manhandled and cut into, it had been so bad the last time they’d taken blood from him… did they ever manage to take blood from him last time? Now that he thought about it… things weren’t lining up like they should’ve. The last time the humans were here was feeding day, he could now remember this with a little more clarity, but they hadn’t ever cut into him because… because…
“Gege…?” The voice and term of address were ones he recognized. Not well, but he knew he’d heard them before somewhere. Without conscious action, Xie Lian started to reach his hand out in front of him and, like magic, it worked. How could it work? Wasn’t he tied up? What was happening? He tried to call out — he knew the voice that had called to him was kind and Xie Lian wanted to ask it for help, wanted it to answer his questions. All that came out was a low grunt.
“Gege!” There it was again. It sounded nice in his ears, it wasn’t like endless silence that kept him isolated in the cave.
The longer time went on the more Xie Lian became aware of the state his body was in. He wasn’t in the cave, he didn’t think so based on what he could tell. Though he couldn’t tell where exactly he was now that he wasn’t in the cave, he at least knew he wasn’t there. He was far too warm and far too… horizontal? He was laying down. Why was he laying down? It was soft underneath him, soft, warm and cushy. If not for the growing hunger in his gut he could almost say he was perfectly comfortable, he surely was the most comfortable he had been in ages, how long had it been since his body felt this good, didn’t feel like it was straining at its seams just to exist. If only it weren’t for the hunger. The hunger that had his face scrunching up and twisting in pain because he had… he had recently known what it was like not to feel this way. Now it fully came to him, the daozhong in red, the vial falling to the floor, the knife in the man’s hands, how that knife hadn't hurt him, how it’d provided him with the sweetest, most delectable, blood he’d had in ages. It was the best he’d had since… ever if he was being honest, since it had long become his habit, before the cave, to subsist off of the blood of those already doomed to death. That kind of blood never really filled his stomach. That new blood, it had. Gods, he wanted that blood again. He was hungry and now that he knew what being full tasted like, he wanted blood more than ever. He was struggling to stay lucid but he feared if he fell asleep he would wake up in that cursed cave again and be trapped there, body taken apart and hungry forever.
Something wet his lips.
Something warm, something that smelled good, beyond good, it was a scent memory from the man in red, his blood, that was his blood. His mouth jerked open and tried to close around whatever the source was only to come up empty.
“Gege, I’m going to need you to sit up if you want to drink, I’m going to move you, okay?” If that’s what it took for him to be able to drink he was completely fine with it. He tried to nod, he thinks the message got through. Even if the warm hand sent shivers down his spine from how foreign it was, the softness of its touch, when it came to his upper back and pushed his torso upright as if he were something fragile and worth not breaking at that, he was alright with it. As long as he could get his mouth on that blood soon.
Once upright he felt something starkly cold be pressed to his lips. A cup, maybe? The cup, he thought, was tilted up very slowly, so gradually it could be considered gentle, soothing in how softly it treated him but it wasn't fast enough. On desperate instinct Xie Lian parted his lips and waited. He didn’t have to wait long before there was a warm liquid being poured between his lips, into his mouth and pooling so that it was ready to be swallowed down his throat. The liquid tasted divine, he easily recognized it as the cultivator’s blood and greedily swallowed gulp after gulp until the stream came to an early end.
He could’ve sworn he’d only had half a meal's worth before only the last dribbles remained. Searching for more, Xie Lian licked his chapped lips to no avail. He wanted more, he always wanted more but this was different, he was no longer starving for it, he would be okay, he would be fine, just… uncomfortable. Regretfully, this lack of food made him ponder, maybe he was still in the cave? After all, if he was with the kind daozhong, wouldn’t he give him more to eat than this? Wouldn’t he be nice enough to allow him a complete reprieve?
That’s when he started to gag. Bile rose in his throat and it burned badly. Before anything could escape him however, that same hand that had given him blood quickly guided his torso to one side, tilting it so his head was over the edge of the bed. Unable to even try and hold it back, Xie Lian vomited into a held out bucket. When the smell of it hit his nose he vomited again. All that came up was as could be expected, a disgusting mix of stomach acid and blood.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That was all Xie Lian could think at the moment. There was no way he’d just given up all the blood he’d been so grateful for being given. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes. At least thanks to the taste of stomach acid lingering in his mouth he wasn’t as achingly hungry as usual but still, this wasn’t good. Now that he’d vomited out what his captors had given, how would they not think him ungrateful and would they not refuse to give him more in the future? He choked out a sob, trying to hold back from vomiting again. It didn’t work and he then dry heaved painfully into the bucket, there was nothing in his stomach to come out anymore. The heavy, empty feeling brought even more tears to his eyes, tears of both pain and exhaustion. Gods, he was so weak. Still, he desperately needed to communicate to his captors that he wasn’t ungrateful and that he would like more blood, please. A whimper left his throat where pleading words should have been.
A soothingly cool hand rubbed circles on his back. The contact was still safe and comforting, in a way it reminded him of the way his mother used to rub his back in order to calm him down as a child. This only seemed to bring more tears to his eyes, more pain to the forefront of his mind, and so he sobbed. He cried and cried until all he could force out was little whimpering breaths, which wasn’t for long. Throughout this process only the fewest drops of tears managed to come from his heavily dehydrated body. It had been so long since he’d be given water after all. As if summoning it into existence, Xie Lian was laid back into an upright position and there was once again a cup placed against his lips. When he eagerly welcomed in what he assumed would be another bout of blood, he was surprised to find it was instead water.
He tried his best to gulp it down as soon as he realized what it was and was more successful than the time previous with the blood but it was still a struggle. Halfway through he started coughing and the steady stream poured onto his face a bit. Immediately the cup was taken away and a towel came to his face where it was wet to dab away the liquid. It was calming, it was soft, it was comfort. Then, once his face was dry he was given more of the water, still slow and steady but plenty fast enough for Xie Lian to be able to manage it well. The water felt soothing on his parched throat but didn’t quite scratch the itch at the back of it. Still, it managed to lull him back into sleep.