( The dance steps are simple, trickled, slow. Oh is a mute, stifled gasp and the unhinging of his mouth, as he drips back, one step and the next, and Wei Ying's blade bartering his path open. Pale tendrils unravel, peel back. His husband pushes him forward.

And he retaliates, round of his arm knocking a soft hold on Wei Ying's nape, dragging him beside Lan Wangji, until they skid through matter organic in the middle of the hall. The pulse of his heart rains, slow and steadied and syncopated, in the beatings of the web against wall. He watches them swell and heave, watches the quiet glint of their medallions, waiting.

He thinks to kiss his husband, soft. Wei Ying speaks first. Reroutes them. )

...was it? ( They do not speak of it, belly broad of a battered beast, and what Wei Ying plucked from the great Xuanwu. They never discuss his hurts, his unmaking. How the Yin iron slept in every hand, but stirred in Wei Ying's. )
What did it speak to you?

( How did it coax and conquer Wei Ying, who had yet to lose all that there was to surrender? How did it tease and compel him? )