( A side glance, the widening of eyes, then their relaxation. This he's used to, the times their teeth pull back and fangs find flesh, scoring shallow wounds on each other's flanks. Quick to scab over and heal, quick to rise, tempers he's wound around his life long. )

No, but they set more impressive ones on their dungeon's dog.

( Eyes that study chains, glance briefly toward Lan Zhan's face, pale and heated and sweating in the manner unavoidable with this extensive exposure upsetting equilibrium for its unnatural states. Or is that merely the trick for his eyes? Do his husband's see something else, shimmering against his skin?

The bearing of secrets is not a pleasant affair; exposing underbellies, creating vulnerabilities. It is not the time for it. There is never time for it.

It is now, before a caged door, before a series of lies and mysteries cultivated by the same political powers that transformed people as easily as puppets. For a cause, for justice, for us, for us, for him.

He shakes his head, presses his hand against the door, fingers curling around the thickness of these chains. )

Big as a horse, Lan Zhan, what monster did the Wens breed?

( His voice almost doesn't tighten. His shoulders almost don't remember. He had almost convinced himself, once, that terror in that cell could not possibly be real. Wen Ning's kindness had seen him survive it; Wei Wuxian suffers no illusions otherwise. Paid in turn again and again, the world spins on threads less substantial, no less strong, than the silk draping from their shoulders. )

Chained gods, chained dogs. Both false, ah?

( Holding hard, the metal seeking, seeking, seeking, to find its way through flesh. )