high cloud disaster ot3 shit

[lifeban]

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

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[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.]

[subcutaneous]

[blade knows that the moment he enters luofu airspace that jing yuan would be aware; he was that kind of man, the sort of person who indulged ghosts. besides. that was unimportant. the important thing was.

he's wearing it he's wearing it he's wearing it he's wearing it.

he steps into that clearing and it feels like coming home. dan heng is radiant as always and blade wants, a heady rush so strong everything else is muffled. he greets his dearest with his sword, as always, a swing that would cleave a lesser man into pieces.]

[lifeban]

[he's known, or at least suspected for a long time, that blade gets Too Much from their encounters. but all this time, he's been the only one wearing the bracer. the connection where, for all these centuries, there's been nothing but emptiness only highlighted by the occasional aching memory-- blade's emotions are so intense all at once like this. he's having a fire hose of centuries and centuries of fucked up emotion pointed at him, and the dissonance between the love and desire and the shard sword clashing against cloudpiercer leaves him breathless. it's only his own years of fighting for his own individual self against a tide of memories that keeps him afloat.

but even with his mind reeling, his body knows how to fight. picks up the same dance they've always performed with their weapons, that he now knows to be bound to one another in their own way.]

Blade--

[his voice is choked, halfway to a growl with how intense his own feelings are, his own want and love and terror and anxiety and stubbornness threatening to bleed into blade's in an unhinged mess.

he feels like he'll go insane too, like this.]

[subcutaneous]

[every downswing is an I love you, every parry is an i hate you, every shriek of metal against divine metal is i can't live without you. i can't die without you. don't leave me. don't leave me. please..

what gets him, though, is that dan heng's emotions are bleeding through as well. he isn't sure if the bracers are working correctly because they aren't that much different from what he feels all the time and that can't be true because the only sort of conversation they'd ever had was done with the intent to maim.

he falters first. he is unused to this new thing. one wide arc of his sword and he goes off balance but he lunges for dan heng, intending to knock him to the ground.]

[lifeban]

[dan heng has to make a choice in that moment. he sees blade misstep for the swing he took, and experience tells him this is his chance, if he moves right he can kill blade and run--

but in that moment, blade can feel the love and determination shine through, and instead he spins cloudpiercer so it strikes the shard sword hard, dissonant, with force enough to send both weapons flying. this means he does absolutely get bodied by the larger man.]

[lionsleeps]

[The moment they hit the ground is the moment their little lovers' spat is interrupted by a fond but heavy sigh. Of course Jing Yuan noticed them both arriving, and of course he knew what it would lead to. What he doesn't know is why, and why here.

And, as always, no matter how much it hurts to watch them fight, he can never bring himself to stay away from his old friends. Seven centuries have passed, and he still misses them every. single. day.. Seven centuries, and there's never been anyone else he could imagine loving the way he loved them. The way he still does.

But no amount of his own longing and loneliness will ever have an effect on what the rest of them do. He accepted that a long time ago, though it still stings.

Despite all that -- despite the knowledge that all he can expect is to bear witness to the mess -- he's arrived here. Alone. And he keeps his soft feline smile on his face, acting as if this is all an amusing little game.]

Causing trouble once again, are we?

[subcutaneous]

[blade has dan heng caged against the scattered debris of a shipping container that seem to have contained … lanterns.

he doesn’t look at jing yuan, keeping a gaze with eyes a little bit too wide on dan heng’s face. a pulse of desire runs through him so strongly he grits his teeth.]

It wasn’t me this time.