headlocked | high cloud disaster ot3 shit

[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.

[feeling the mara secondhand is. bad. in fact. it's not affecting him, not directly, but the way blade's emotions are spinning out of control is dizzying, overwhelming, as though there wasn't already so much going on emotionally.

he's not sure how to cut in, here. not sure he should. he's gunshy, given the situation. scared of making things worse still.

...but he lured blade here, and now blade feels like this. he set this all up. so doing nothing isn't something he can stand. he steps closer, trying to stay in blade's line of sight, so the light touch at his shoulder doesn't come off as an attack.

(this is so surreal)]

You don't scare me at all.

[There's a hint of his old childhood petulance in that -- it's confident and even-tempered now, but it still manages to recall that ancient prideful pout.]

What was it I said that hurt you so much?

[grabs at that touch on his shoulder, and for a moment, he trembles violently. (he’s not sorry about the weird patches of spider lilies poking their way up through the grates on the floor, fuck you, you can deal with that jing yuan.)

but not for the first time, dan heng calms the mara, instead exacerbating it.]

It doesn’t matter. [brittle.] You’ve moved on; both of you. Good for you. [he smiles like a knife, shrugging.] Not all of us are so lucky. Where’s the groveling, Dan Heng?

[twitches when grabbed, in spite of his best effort absolutely still the man who has spent so long fleeing from blade. but he doesn't pull away. and there's relief and concern thrumming along the bracer as blade pulls himself together.

wryly:]

I didn't realize you wanted to see it?

[because he can't argue with having moved on. it's kind of his whole gig.]

[Aeons, please don't. Groveling would be far too awkward -- which he knows is the point of Blade's venom about it, but he'd still rather not deal with that kind of embarrassment right now.

It's more than enough stress just to be in this situation. To be addressing that bottomless void of pain he's been carrying all this time. He tries not to acknowledge it. There's too much responsibility on his shoulders to let himself indulge in sorrow, when he's seen what became of Yingxing and Jingliu.

Now, though, it seems he can't avoid it without wounding the people he loves most. So he shifts his weight, takes a deep breath, and opens the gates.]

I haven't moved on. Not at all.

[He pauses just briefly to brace himself for the inevitable flood of emotions.]

You two have insisted time and time again that you are different people. I am trying to honor that, "Blade" and "Dan Heng". The wall between us was built by you.

But I am the only survivor of what we were. I could never abandon the memory of us, and I have never once stopped longing for those who left me behind.

[blade slowly turns his head to look at dan heng. he's wearing the same fanatical smile he has on whenever cloudpiercer makes its home between his ribs.]

You should know by now. I derive pleasure from all the faces you make.

[yeah. good job blade that came out perfectly. anyway! jing yuan also gets the full force of that manic smile because today is such a good time.]

Left you behind? I don't know if you ever noticed, Jing Yuan, but I died. Several thousand times. I am marastruck. I did not leave you behind.

[this is the first time dan heng's response to that smile has been to blush, though there's still a burst of terror licking at his bones.

he tears his gaze away.]

...I think I'm the only one here who's truly left anyone behind. But I'm here now.

[Ah, how depressingly predictable. The moment he lets himself be vulnerable, he gets stung.

He is, of course, noting the sparks flying between Blade & Dan Heng. He's keeping in mind that Blade is clearly having an episode.

But.

But it still fucking hurts. It hurts so much he can feel his composure starting to slip. Raising his voice is highly unusual for Jing Yuan these days, but with that blow from Blade the pressure of his negative emotions has finally exceeded his capacity to suppress them.]

You left me when you chose to throw away your futures in the first place! You leave me again every time you tear eachother apart! Your "three people" nonsense-- there has never been any comfort in my exclusion. I have been reduced to acceptable collateral damage over and over, and now you expect me to gratefully accept the generous gift of your attention!?

Tell me, old friends: Exactly how much of the consequences of your actions must I bear before I am allowed to be angry!?

[that blush visibly short-circuits blade’s scrambled brain cells, and unfortunately what little that was left working was set ablaze by jing yuan’s outburst.]

Then be angry. [blade sways towards jing yuan, eyes alight with the cancerous gold that refused to let him die. his brand of problem-solving was violence upon his own person or on someone else’s, and if the first time jing yuan would put hands on him was to hurt him, he wasn’t going to complain.

he’s already looking around for the shard sword. ah, there it is.] Come.

[hot tip. do not reconnect an empathy bond with a mara struck person. especially not this one.

hearing jing yuan's voice raised isn't helping, isn't at all keeping the panic rising up his spine (with the arousal, fuck, fuck) from blending with blade's. he's hanging on to himself by the barest determination, but the hand on blade's shoulder is growing heavy. trying to keep him there.]

Don't.

[desperation. it's clearly to blade. his tongue feels heavy in his mouth, too big, too long, and his eyes are starting to glow. but he turns them back to jing yuan.]

...You're allowed to be angry. You were all along. Not- with me as I was, perhaps, but here and now...

That's why I did this. I don't want you to just... be collateral damage.

[stumbling over words, pausing, picking them back up. but he's visibly losing the thread of his own intent, now, hair lengthening slowly and horns and tail starting to bubble into existence.]

[Do you ever have one of those days where getting out of bed in the morning seems to have been a huge mistake?

Yeah. It's one of those days. Jing Yuan is starting to think he should've just ignored their presence on the ship and let them fightfuck on their own.]

I don't want to fight you.

[He is angry, but the violence between the quintet remnants is a big part of what makes him so miserable. He would really rather not be involved in it. He would also not like to be a part of the feedback loop they seem to have going.]

And I can't trust comfort from you. You will hurt eachother, and you will leave, and... I am old, and hanging by a thread. Cut it, and I will fall.

[And then he sighs:]

Take it off, Dan Heng. He's turning you to mush.

[He knows what they're doing!!]

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