headlocked | high cloud disaster ot3 shit

[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.]

[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.]

[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.]

[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.]

[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.]

[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?

[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.

[jing yuan's voice brings with it a rush of- victory? dan heng's prey has sprung his trap.

he's winded from the impact, whole body thrumming with adrenaline and lust and he does not know how to deal with that right now. so it's mind over matter. if he can't grapple with the overwhelming rush of feelings, he will simply put them aside as best he can.

looking away from blade feels dangerous, but this whole venture is, so he cranes his neck to try and catch a glimpse of jing yuan, past the debris and how trapped he is.]

He's right.

Really?

[There's that playful little head tilt, as he continues to downplay the situation. This is fine. They're fine. He's not extremely frustrated at them for showing up when he's not done moping about the last time.

To be completely honest this bunch is probably shortening the remainder of his life as he knows it. But he loves them anyway.]

Now what's gotten into you, Dan Heng, that you would bring this person back to my Luofu?

[ah yes there was the fucking thing that left blade without any doubt how jing yuan felt about him. there had never been one single time he could remember that the divine foresight had deigned to call him by name - either of them.

he’d have to pound it into dan heng’s little dragon head how completely useless this exercise was. with a bitter grunt he gets to his feet - but he holds a hand out, to help dan heng up.]

[in the same moment dan heng's heart soars to hear jing yuan use the right name, blade's crashes hard. it's disorienting. jarring enough he's momentarily stunned, and when he's processing again, there's blade's hand waiting for him.

he stares, heart in his throat, but takes it. turns his attention back to jing yuan.]

...I didn't want to leave you alone. After last time. I've- remembered more.

[He recovers from it remarkably fast, but for a brief instant Jing Yuan looks quite stricken. It's kind of funny, he thinks, how the emotions Dan Heng's words have brought are utterly contradictory.

On the one hand, he's been so lonely for so long that the idea of not being alone -- of one of his beloved people paying attention to how he's actually feeling -- is heavenly. He wants to be noticed. He wants to stop feeling like he's been left behind holding nothing but debris.

But on the other hand there's a spark of anger so hot it startles him. Why now? Why come back only when he's old and exhausted and feeling the clock ticking towards the end?

That feeling is one he doesn't want to entertain. For his own well-being, and because he loves them, he buries the spark deep in his heart and smiles.]

I'm far from alone. In fact, I'm surrounded every day in people I quite like. But I appreciate your concern.

[that makes him laugh, a raspy, scraped-out thing. jing yuan may have gotten better at controlling his expressions but blade remembers what he was like Before. what kafka had worked tirelessly to suppress crawled up to the surface, as they’d both known was inevitable.]

See. [to dan heng.] He’s quite good at lying to himself. Always has been. [he shrugs, already looking around for a starskiff to hijack. mockingly:] But do what you want. Maybe your little A-Yuan would appreciate it.

[bitch do you think he let GO of your hand? he did not. he squeezes blade's hand, but keeps his gaze on jing yuan like he's worried he's the one who'll disappear.]

You know what I mean.

[While Blade's not looking, Jing Yuan shoots him a momentary glare. How dare you. You come into MY HOUSE--

Fortunately Dan Heng is a good distraction so he can mooostly keep up the chill facade. Still, his smile has taken on a rather sharp edge.]

I don't. You are not Dan Feng, and he is not Yingxing, any more than that child is who she once was. I have accepted all of that. What do you expect to bring me that cannot be provided by the people who've come into my life in their absence?

[He is, in truth, simply having a hard time trusting it. He can't get his heart broken again. It's already barely held together by a patchwork of fragile repairs.]

[hey you are out of line young man. old man. whatever. blade’s hand is doing a great impression of a dead fish in dan heng’s, but the bracer betrays his agitation.]

He isn’t. [it takes a great deal out of him, the slow hollowing out of one of the foundations of his identity.] He isn’t - him.

[but under the rotten floorboards there still laid a corpse named yingxing, because how else was he to explain the fact that he had never forgotten his miserable affections for all of them? it was what made the mara worse.]

Did him saving your pathetic ship mean nothing then?

[dan heng's hackles go up, too. bringing up bailu is out of line, as far as he's concerned, and feeling blade's agitation isn't helping him be normal.]

Leave her out of this.

[too sharp. he winces at the sound of his own voice. holds blade's hand tighter still.

there's an agonized kind of warmth, under the stress. he's not missing the effort blade put in, to admit who he isn't. another breath as he tries to quell his own distress.]

... You do know. We aren't them, but...

[They both snap back, and Jing Yuan... goes quiet. It's that same withdrawal into himself that happens every time he's around the remnants of the quintet -- it's also the same somber quiet that he had back then, when it happened. When he knew how badly it would go, and yet didn't dare to speak up to stop it.

He's old now, and they're changed, but a part of him remembers when he was but a child, looking up at these remarkable people who accepted him into their midst and chasing after their approval. He'd gotten it, and the intimacy of their relationships had changed when he grew up, but the feeling is still there a bit. He still hesitates to push too hard.

He knows he was letting his bitterness show, and he feels guilty about it, but he also can't let go of it. He's annoyed at being reprimanded, not just because of the shadow of his youthful pride, but because they left her just as they left him.

But he's not going to argue. He just deflates, folding his arms and glancing off to the side to avoid looking directly at them.]

...Of course, I value what you've both done for the Luofu. I apologise for my outburst.

[he literally rolls his eyes, the exact same way he used to do eight hundred years ago when one of them said something particularly stupid.]

This isn’t a diplomatic mission. Stop being a brat and let him fret over you.

[ugh he misses his depression bathtub already. but he does kind of sort of curl his fingers into dan heng’s, if you squinted at a 90 degree angle.]

[his heart drops, watching jing yuan... recede like that. like he had when they all met in the scalegorge. this is exactly what he had wanted to make up for, in reaching out, and he's just making it worse. he hadn't thought it through, in part because he knew he couldn't predict these two, and yet it still utterly floored him to be rejected. like he'd honestly expected jing yuan, seven hundred years later, to respond like the eager young thing he'd been back then. he feels like an idiot. because he is an idiot.]

... You don't need to apologize. I shouldn't have snapped.

[almost too soft to hear, taking on blade's own exhaustion.]

[Jing Yuan can be ever-so-charming, manipulative, and politically savvy. He's a great sweet-talker, and also a great shit-talker when that's the better option. His teasing strikes with needle-sharp precision, and he almost never loses control of a situation.

But when he's with these people, it all seems to go out the window. He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't know what to do. He wants to run back home, crawl under the blankets, and shut it all out.

He won't. He'll continue to stand steady beside them, no matter what. But it hurts.]

I have endured, all this time. I truly do not understand what you have to fret about, or why you've come here so unexpectedly to confront me with it.

So that’s it, then. She was right.

[he shakes his hand free of dan heng’s, because if he didn’t, he would grind the bones of the other man’s hand into pieces.]

Seven hundred fucking years, Jing Yuan, and not once had you ever-

[his voice breaks. enough. he did not want this freedom, the visceral separation between the golden past his mara eclipsed and the colorless present, but like every other significant thing in his life it was forced on him.]

Grovel at your General’s feet, fuck him, Dan Heng, I don’t care. I’m leaving. You know how to find me.

Edited (wauuuugh) 2023-10-15 00:27 (UTC)

I understand better, now. Who he was. Who you were-

[he turns to blade, as his hand pulls away, as his voice breaks, alarmed even though he's felt the spiralling downward--

and then he's struck, suddenly, by how easy it was to fall into step with blade. form some kind of united front. could it have been this easy all along, if only he'd known?

despair and hysteria rise in him simultaneously, and he... breathes out. nods.

there's not even a moment of offense, at blade's words. dan feng was a proud creature, but dan heng never had that luxury, and right now if he thought either course of action would help he might very well try it.]

She was...?

[Wait he doesn't understand. It's rare for him to feel so lost, but all he can think right now is "I fucked up I fucked up I fucked up--"

He never expected to hear that kind of pain from Blade. He didn't think he had the power to hurt him. Yet here is that hurt, right in front of him, and he doesn't even know what he did to cause it. It makes that anxious side of him wind up -- the side that fears mistakes and failures so much he's become a practical genius just to avoid them.

His gaze snaps back to them, moving between the two with something resembling panic. Jing Yuan never acts unless he's sure of success. He's exceedingly cautious and meticulous, despite his lazy facade. But there's not any clever planning in the way he blurts out the name he's been hiding from for centuries.]

Wait, Yi-- Blade!

[there’s a wave of all-consuming heartsickness through the bracer, as blade stops in his tracks, but doesn’t look back.

it doesn’t feel good. he’d long given up on anything feeling good but this one just hurt, hearing jing yuan finally acknowledge the identity jingliu left him with in a shallow, unmarked grave.

he realises with a start: if dan heng had not come to him first, trying to piece together all the jagged edges left around the negative space with dan feng’s shape, he would have come to dan heng, instead.]

So you do know what my name is. [the malice in his voice has overtures of mara, and he braces a hand against his temple. He sways in place.] Did I scare you too much? The monster underneath your bed.

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