( His laugh is sparse, then low, a rumble that flows from his throat and turns into rasps as he leans in to the press of the cool bandage to his forehead, his temples, Lan Zhan's ministrations both foreign and not. Welcome in a way he's not used to welcoming, even knowing how he's been tended to by Lan Zhan over the years. Layers, peeled back as their robes are, and so it goes. )
Mo Xuanyu didn't perish, is the worst of it. Lan Zhan, no curse holds without a living presence. Mine held. He lived for long enough to see it through.
( Or longer, but that's nothing he wants to grapple with, the darkness and a space that was not a space, a place that was in and out of time, where grief stretched endless, and exhaustion consumed him, and numbness, eventually, settled in. He will never remember much of that time, of sleep that gave no rest, of time that passed without moving, of awareness, and the lack thereof.
It's not the point. It's exhaustion speaking, it's improbabilities spilling off his tongue, it's the pain of a time dulled to him now where it had been still so different, two years ago, two and a half? Time flows and flows, a river that feeds itself in a grand loop that stretches far beyond what he can see on the horizon. )
Memory is strong. We're stronger. We are.
( No matter that he's weakened in this moment, hollowed out, played thin. His forehead, hot, feels cooler for Lan Zhan's touch, tepid water his post-battle ablutions. )
Memory fades. We won't.
( Startling, a touch, a flinch as he realises he's been sitting, and can't remember when Lan Zhan led him to sit. The Wards he recognises, bleariness stealing clarity of vision, of thought. He has something to ask, or thinks he does, and he whispers: )
If my vision dims, I'll wake. No worrying. No guilt.
( From Doctor Wuxian, in his poor trappings of uneasy medic over the month and more they've been here. His husband may not heed this, but he must say it anyway. )
no subject
( His laugh is sparse, then low, a rumble that flows from his throat and turns into rasps as he leans in to the press of the cool bandage to his forehead, his temples, Lan Zhan's ministrations both foreign and not. Welcome in a way he's not used to welcoming, even knowing how he's been tended to by Lan Zhan over the years. Layers, peeled back as their robes are, and so it goes. )
Mo Xuanyu didn't perish, is the worst of it. Lan Zhan, no curse holds without a living presence. Mine held. He lived for long enough to see it through.
( Or longer, but that's nothing he wants to grapple with, the darkness and a space that was not a space, a place that was in and out of time, where grief stretched endless, and exhaustion consumed him, and numbness, eventually, settled in. He will never remember much of that time, of sleep that gave no rest, of time that passed without moving, of awareness, and the lack thereof.
It's not the point. It's exhaustion speaking, it's improbabilities spilling off his tongue, it's the pain of a time dulled to him now where it had been still so different, two years ago, two and a half? Time flows and flows, a river that feeds itself in a grand loop that stretches far beyond what he can see on the horizon. )
Memory is strong. We're stronger. We are.
( No matter that he's weakened in this moment, hollowed out, played thin. His forehead, hot, feels cooler for Lan Zhan's touch, tepid water his post-battle ablutions. )
Memory fades. We won't.
( Startling, a touch, a flinch as he realises he's been sitting, and can't remember when Lan Zhan led him to sit. The Wards he recognises, bleariness stealing clarity of vision, of thought. He has something to ask, or thinks he does, and he whispers: )
If my vision dims, I'll wake. No worrying. No guilt.
( From Doctor Wuxian, in his poor trappings of uneasy medic over the month and more they've been here. His husband may not heed this, but he must say it anyway. )