high cloud disaster ot3 shit

[lifeban]

just gonna put the actual starters in top-levels, i know myself

Comments

[subcutaneous]

[no fuck you

presses answer call

presses end call]

[lifeban]

"Blade."

[calling him again]

[subcutaneous]

[wow. letting it ring for about twenty seconds before answering.

and not actually saying anything! just like. breathing. waiting. he's good at waiting.]

[lifeban]

[already so fucking annoyed, so he just, snaps into the phone:]

We can't do this to Jing Yuan.

1/2

[subcutaneous]

[he hangs up immediately. fuck off. fuck him. fuck you.]

[subcutaneous]

[FINE, god. it's pathetic how he just keeps crawling back. now he's the one calling dan heng.]

What is this, exactly?

[lifeban]

[he was about to call again so his phone vibrating honestly spooks him for a moment, there is a brief pause before he picks up. he really needs to make a contact for blade. apparently.]

You saw him.

[subcutaneous]

[long silence. yes he did see jing yuan. yes, he did, in a moment of weakness, wanted to say, welcome back. doesn't mean they have anything to do with each other. he'd been nothing but a spectator in the frankly unbelievable circus shitshow that was their existences and blade would like to keep it that way because jing yuan did not deserve this - whatever this was.]

And? He isn't one of those who needs to pay the price. [sneer.] Feeling guilty, are we?

[lifeban]

[a momentary, silent snarl, as dan heng's hackles go up because that's what he's done his whole life, but--

if he wants this to work, he can't be set off so easily. blade can hear him let out a tense breath.]

Exactly. So why is he paying?

[subcutaneous]

[what if he just threw this phone into the nearest airlock.

he inhales. leans back. the mara stirs, agitated, but far below the baseline that heralded disassociation. just really fucking prickly and annoying. like the man on the other side of the line.]

I don't know what you're talking about.

[lifeban]

He didn't do anything wrong. This whole time, he's been cleaning up our messes. And standing back and watching us fuck up more when he can't stop us.

[another audible breath, this one sharp rather than soothing. and he takes the plunge.]

A-Yuan doesn't deserve the way we left this.

1/3

[subcutaneous]

[long silence. so long that its like blade ended the call.]

2/3

[subcutaneous]

[then the most ragged, desperate breath, edging into the injured whine that suited rabid creatures.]

You.

[subcutaneous]

[sits up in his depression bathtub.

IMBIBITOR LUNAE.

]

Was it fun watching us try to kill each other?

[lifeban]

[flinches bodily. luckily, blade can't see that.]

No.

You're the one who insisted on that.

[subcutaneous]

Do you know what it's like to want for seven hundred years?

[ohh my god. he rasps a breath. he sounds like a cheap horror holomovie. he feels like his brain cells are being twisted into pretzels.]

[mockingly:] A-Yuan.

[lifeban]

[no. because he spent much of that time as an egg, then in the shackling prison, then-- well. he's always been awkward about jing yuan. rejected the emotions that came with any more personal memories. he's not the man jing yuan was with. and he'd thought the other object of his affections was long dead.

without meaning to, his voice comes out stung and pleading both.]

Yingxing.

[subcutaneous]

[don't do this to him.]

Don't call me that or I will slit your throat.

[but it does something to him; makes him go limp like a puppet cut free of its strings. the back of his eyes sting. he thought he'd long torn out his ability to weep.]

So you remember?

[lifeban]

[oh.

yeah. he knows that feeling.]

I'm sorry.

[it's obvious he means it.]

Not... everything. But more.

[subcutaneous]

I want to see you.

[lifeban]

[dear survival instincts: just stop. we're ignoring you now.]

In person?

[subcutaneous]

Yes.

[he's already getting up. looking for his sword. he feels the same relentless urge that always accompanied the game of cat and mouse.]

Don't be so surprised you have warning now.

[lifeban]

I'm not surprised.

[a moment, then...]

The Luofu. Stargazer Navalia.

[subcutaneous]

[predictably, blade just hangs up. picks up his sword. silver wolf makes some noise about him getting her a souvenir; kafka just smiles, mysteriously aggravating. good enough for him. this might be a script, might be not, the important thing was that he was going to see him on invitation.

he's not had new and novel things in a very long time.

stargazer navalia is large and deserted with its ever-winding walkways but the difference here and now is that under his sleeve blade is wearing a bracer. their bracer. oh, dan feng, dan heng, where are you.]

[lifeban]

[aeons. he can feel him coming.

the moment the bracer goes on, blade can feel his pulse, the rising excitement and fear and determination as he feels him drawing closer.

it's not hide and seek, this time. he set the playing field, with its mixture of obstacles and wide open spaces and its relatively low foot traffic. so he stands in one of those wider spaces and waits, cloudpiercer in hand.

they're on the luofu, now, and he made sure to be seen arriving. their third should be aware, soon.]