It was, Shion supposed, inevitable that he'd be the one to spend two weeks dead and enchanted from rot, but Nezumi would be the one to fall apart.
As for Shion, he woke up - rose - confused, weakened from a long cold immobility, appalled by the apparent destruction his death almost wrought. The life and happiness of the innocent man, the peace between two countries, the peace in his loved ones, all almost shattered, but for the miracle. But death itself he didn't remember: even the blow that killed him was fast, painless, just a quick, freezing flash, and then nothingness. If he saw anything beyond it, he didn't recall; if he'd dreamt of anything under the enchanted glass, these dreams didn't follow him in the world of living.
Shion, in short, was fine, and ready to accept the gift of resurrection unexamined. But Nezumi - wasn't.
Not in an overt way, of course, not after the desperate cleaving of the first few days, when Nezumi clutched and held and wouldn't let go. But even before Illeria's king came to claim his knight errant, Nezumi (rather pointedly) stopped hovering, started teasing Shion again, left him alone for some stretches of time, joked and smiled and frowned anew. All was, on the surface, well, and yet -
It took Shion almost a week; he blamed the general hubbub of palace life around them, instead of the familiar busy bubble of the warship. But finally he listened attentively enough, followed the deafening silences and came to a jarring realisation.
Nezumi didn't sing.
Now, Nezumi never was overly demonstrative with his singing, unless he was playing a role, which was a different game altogether. But he hummed when he moved, little snatches of melody to follow his rough, capable hands. He sent his music to Shion as a gift, as an invitation, as a reminder. And now the absence of this bridge was shattering and awful, and Shion didn't know what to do with it.
He tried being indirect about it, offering Nezumi snatches of melody nonchalantly, to no avail. And all the while this hidden silence grew more and more unbearable, and in the end he lured Nezumi in one of the palace hidden gardens on a hot, humid day when the entire city was asleep, and asked him to sing.
Nezumi looked at him, turned ghost-white, and fled.
Shion gave him a day to hide, and an evening to not talk about it, out of a kind of worried mercy; but when in the middle of the night he woke to Nezumi clutching him and silently, desperately trying to catch his breath, he turned over and touched his face, and said: "Why can't you sing for me, Nezumi?"
It was, he supposed, cruel, for all he tried to be gentle, but Nezumi taught him the necessity of cruelty for healing. He held on, and watched Nezumi in the moonlight, while he struggled for an answer.
In the end Nezumi said, and each word sounded like it splintered inside his throat: "I've tried to sing to you while you were - were - inside it. Inside the thing. Under. Under the glass. I've tried to sing to you and bring you back and I couldn't. I could not - it would not - you wouldn't wake up. Nothing happened. Nothing could - "
He made a desperate, rough noise, and hid his face in Shion's shoulder - his Nezumi, who never turned away from anything, who spit into the faces of those who opposed him, who had taken Shion off the cross and kissed the marks left by the barbed wire. He hid and shook, and Shion stroked his hair and shoulders, long, soft, lulling motions, and held him, and murmured "I'm here - I'm here now - you held me, you brought me - you took me home - I'm here, here, here, I'm here. I followed you home in the end. Shh, shh, shh..."
He went at it until his voice cracked and bled, until Nezumi shuddered and went pliant and still in his arms, and then he hummed a quiet, rough lullaby (his mother's face, his mother's hands), missing the notes and mangling the words, and on the last verse, Nezumi's voice joined in.