He almost doesn't catch the words, where he hadn't caught the man at all. Caught, yes, caught off guard and by surprise, having taken the words I shall not as s declaration to survive, and it's not, in the end, as the wheels the horse around to its complaint and rearing stands, to the sweat flecking its sides, to the harsher breathing of an animal that as much yearns for sweet hay and a rubdown as he might have, some nights, yearned for a pillow and a bed not made on dirt or stone.
Wei Wuxian drops like a stone to the ground, one rein in hand, trailing the dancing horse that lowers its head and lips at grasses off the side of the road when he approaches his prone, splayed soulmate. The man he's supposed to know, and perhaps part of him does, even understands in that moment.
Part of him bleeds, and it's that ugly bleeding, that tear through him, that has made this hard, that he allows to make it harder.
Bichen he takes no pains to avoid. Doesn't turn aside, in his approach, in the dark wells of his eyes, playing at shadows in unfamiliar clothing, a jester's game. If the blade would not waver, he'd as soon pierce himself upon it, before he kneels, rein gripped and held. Horse skitting sideways with a snort, but lowering head to nose at tufts of grass, too tired to hold on to the same fear, no longer running on adrenaline. It breathes heavy.
Wei Wuxian barely breathes at all.
His free hand reaches into his layers, grasps the leaves and feathers and soil-stained reality of what is at his chest, pressed against his undershirt and staining it so horribly. No matter, that it better sells his purpose out in those woods. Debauched as he looks, would that not be enough? If his thoughts could circle there, he might have smiled, in all the clawing ache that follows, the scream of voices that wanted, that regretted, heard as long gone echoes in his ears.
The feathers, the leaves, he thrusts out in his hand. To Lan Zhan, and to nothing else, not Bichen or the rest of their shambles party, their consolations in never knowing who goes, who comes, or why.
Sizhui in the mines.
"Then not mine," he says, and there's something that cracks open in his chest. A defeat that he swallows. There are no smiles, only dirt and this, the handful of feathers thrust out. "But not just yours, Hanguang-jun. Not when you have a son. Don't consign yourself to die."
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Wei Wuxian drops like a stone to the ground, one rein in hand, trailing the dancing horse that lowers its head and lips at grasses off the side of the road when he approaches his prone, splayed soulmate. The man he's supposed to know, and perhaps part of him does, even understands in that moment.
Part of him bleeds, and it's that ugly bleeding, that tear through him, that has made this hard, that he allows to make it harder.
Bichen he takes no pains to avoid. Doesn't turn aside, in his approach, in the dark wells of his eyes, playing at shadows in unfamiliar clothing, a jester's game. If the blade would not waver, he'd as soon pierce himself upon it, before he kneels, rein gripped and held. Horse skitting sideways with a snort, but lowering head to nose at tufts of grass, too tired to hold on to the same fear, no longer running on adrenaline. It breathes heavy.
Wei Wuxian barely breathes at all.
His free hand reaches into his layers, grasps the leaves and feathers and soil-stained reality of what is at his chest, pressed against his undershirt and staining it so horribly. No matter, that it better sells his purpose out in those woods. Debauched as he looks, would that not be enough? If his thoughts could circle there, he might have smiled, in all the clawing ache that follows, the scream of voices that wanted, that regretted, heard as long gone echoes in his ears.
The feathers, the leaves, he thrusts out in his hand. To Lan Zhan, and to nothing else, not Bichen or the rest of their shambles party, their consolations in never knowing who goes, who comes, or why.
Sizhui in the mines.
"Then not mine," he says, and there's something that cracks open in his chest. A defeat that he swallows. There are no smiles, only dirt and this, the handful of feathers thrust out. "But not just yours, Hanguang-jun. Not when you have a son. Don't consign yourself to die."