jiangshan | (no subject)

(no subject)

WHO: Yi Zhuiying and Hong Langfei
WHERE: Snowshade Peak, Longfei's Mountain in the Far North
WHEN: A few months before the burning of Cloud Recesses
WHAT: Alone, Yi Zhuiying makes his assault to assassinate the Iron Wolf and attempt to bring an end to his bandit clan once and for all. Even if he has to die doing it.
WARNINGS: Death, Death, Death, Death, DeaTH BUT AT LEAST NOT THEIRS. gore, angst, and then some h/c ... and then some sexy times apparently look they've been pent up for a long time

Even flying on his sword, it had taken Yi Zhuiying nearly two weeks to reach the mountain. It had taken him years, before that, to gather enough information to attempt this quest. For all of the Iron Wolf's rampant banditry, tracking him down had been insanely difficult. Villagers and townspeople were too scared to speak of him, and his victims too proud. Zhuiying had to piece together the information slowly and painstakingly, but eventually he succeeded.

He knew where the Wolf's den lay.

Getting there had been another issue in itself. Lan Qiren, the leader of the sect that had given Zhuiying and his family protection since childhood, had recently gone so far as to forbid his quest. His obsession, the Sect Leader had called it.

Yi Zhuiying had packed up and left the next day.

Now, he was so close that he could taste it. Vengeance had always taunted him. It seemed that no matter how much bandit blood his sword Wuqing was tempered with, it would never be sated. The wound in Zhuiying's heart could not be mended by death, no matter how many times he attempted it. Lan Qiren knew this. Lan Xichen knew this. Even Yi Zhuiying himself knew, on some level, that he was slowly destroying himself. But he couldn't stop.

Not until the Wolf was dead.

The snow started long before Zhuiying reached the base of the mountain. He had landed some time before - not wanting the Wolf's scouts to spot him in the sky on his approach. He wished that he had an army behind him, but it did not matter. Perhaps it was better, this way. This way, no one honourable or just would die for his revenge. This way, the only true life he was risking was his own.

His pure white robes usually made him easy to mark against the dark earth or the shade of the trees. Here, as he made his way up the twisting path, he blended into the snow as easily as an arctic hare. His last source of information - a bandit he had captured and the only one he had let live - had warned him of the mountain's dangers. Of the pits and traps that lay along its paths and cliffs. He couldn't give Zhuiying a map, of course, but it hardly mattered. He watched the snow for slight depressions that may indicate a hidden pit, kept his eyes peeled for ropes or spikes.

Or men.

The traps were well laid, and if he had not been so vigilant, he would have been caught long before he reached the first of Snowshade Peak's sentries. Zhuiying moved like the ghost of death itself - the first guard only getting enough time to widen his eyes and part his lips before Wuqing's edge sliced through his throat. A lance of blood strained the snow, sending a streak to stain Zhuiying's white robes. It would not be the first, tonight. He had no doubt when he reached the Wolf himself, the pristine robes of the Lan sect would more closely resemble the deep red of the Wen's. It was almost fitting, given his betrayal to their ideals. Let him be buried a traitor. It would be worth it, to end this lifelong nightmare.

The second guard fell but had just enough time to cry out, and that spelled the beginning of the end of Zhuiying's quest. He could not take his time, now. He could not hunt from the shadows. He could only carve a path of blood and death straight to the heart of the mountain. He would fall, or the Wolf. He barely cared which it was.

The third and forth men he killed by letting them chase him right to a pit trap, then taking their lives when they could not escape. The fifth was pierced through the spine with Wuqing as he tried to run, calling for help. Night was falling on the mountain and the spectre of Zhuiying was becoming more visible, his stained white robes almost glowing where they were lit by the fires that dotted the mountain side, growing brighter as the hunt for the hunter began. He could hear them call back and forth to each other as they chased him in the dark, but he only grew more determined as he went.

He barely felt the arrow that lodged itself in the shoulder of his off hand. He didn't touch it, he didn't remove it. He simply took the head of the man that had given it to him and then kept running.

He could see the lights of the camp up ahead, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He felt the earth give way under him, the pit trap opening, but he threw his sword in front of him and leapt upon it, flying up several dozen feet into the sky only to come crashing down on his next opponent. Steel met steel and sparks flew as they fought across the snow - this man far more competent than any of the others that had come before him. Zhuiying could not afford to feel exhaustion, could not afford to rest or wait, and so he fought like a tiger caged, viscous and ruthless. By the time his opponent finally fell, Zhuiying stood over his body like a vengeful wraith, eyes wild. He could hear the sound of men approaching, many of them, and he raised his bloody sword to point at them as they approached.

"I seek the Wolf," he snarled at them, though he didn't attack. Maybe they would be smart, and let him finally take this fight one-on-one. Or they would not, and he would leave a pile of corpses in his wake.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Unbeknownst to the world, the Iron Wolf was long dead in his grave. Ruling with claws and teeth did not serve, the wolf cub he took in refusing to yield, bowing his head low only to conceal the resolve in his eyes. The wolf cub came upon him in the night, impatient to rule, unable to suffer another day of injustice upon the others of their pack. A quick slash of blade over a bare throat and the world changed for the hungry animals that they were, the unfortunate souls who lived beneath the Wolf's long shadow.

That was years ago. The wolf cub grew, placed their fallen king's crown upon his head, and ruled with silk that cast the illusion of steel. With his new brothers, he let the rumors of the Iron Wolf grow. They attacked caravans without wasting a single life and told the victims they were fortunate to be spared. The survivors spread the stories, spread fear and caution with them, and the nameless tundra changed from a cold prison to a home.

Langfei had been the Iron Wolf since the time he was still a wiry teen, when he still wore layers of furs to appear larger, older than he was. At that age he'd been half feral, his sense of justice and decency borne out of desperation. He performed kindness as a reckless act, laying siege on wealthy merchants trying to use the mountain pass, sending his men far from the mountain to bring back what was needed to care for their own. He took in all he came across without a home. The old, the young, the destitute. This strained the resources the able-bodied were able to provide, but he only pushed himself harder to raise his family up, to be all they needed, and together they eked together a living.

And truly, it was living. By the time Langfei was in his twenties, life was at long last more than getting through the day. Snowshade Peak was frozen to its core, but its mountain caves were warm with smoldering hearths and laughter, thick furs and wine. The legend of the Iron Wolf kept them safe from retaliation, the one boon given to them by their once-king.

At least, it kept those with sense from their door. That did not seem to be the case with their new visitor.

Wolf pelt draped over his shoulders, the empty tanned head of the beast concealing the too-young features of his face, Langfei stepped to the forefront in time to see A-Li fall. Someone who'd been with him since those early years, served him well, watched him wash their leader's blood from his face asked him nothing but where to go. Langfei's eyes shut, hand clasping over his chest to wish his friend a safe journey, and then he draws his sword.

Grief tightening his smile, Langfei offered the challenger a cocky jut of chin as befitting the man of legend. Because even with the blood that's been spilled, or perhaps because of it, he had no intention of ending the young, angry life standing before him now. That meant sending him away without tipping his hand to the secrets of the mountain.

"And you have found him," he welcomed in a low rumble, his own blade twirling in hand as he motioned for the remainder of his men to step back. "Tell me, little beast, what has you so weary of life that you've brought death to my doorstep...?"

He didn't have to look around him to know he was surrounded. He had eyes only for one man, and they glared at the empty mask of the Wolf, unblinking. Of course the man wouldn't show his face. Why pretend he had a shred of honour?

Yi Zhuiying's lip curled, baring his teeth in a snarl, the barely contained rage cracking every last veneer of control he had left. The arrow in his shoulder pulsed with pain every time his heart beat, the dark stain of blood around the wound growing.

"I bring justice long delayed," He said, pointing his sword right at the Wolf's cold heart. His muscles tensed, set like a spring, ready to snap. He trembled from the effort of restraining himself.

"It could take me another hundred years, and I would still come to carve your head from your shoulders. You can never repay the lives you've destroyed. The lives you've taken. But maybe with your blood I can allay their hungry ghosts."

A second later, like a flash of lightning, he was moving - dashing across the rock between them - half running, half soaring. Wuqing's black blade flashed as it cut through the air, it's point determined.

Edited 2020-01-04 08:14 (UTC)

"The only hungry ghost I see is yours."

Sometimes, a lie became its own manner of beast. The irony did not escape Langfei as he ducked, rolling to the side to avoid that greeting strike. Very few lives have been lost to Snowpeak's denizens, far more pulled from the gutters and given a place to exist, but all the while they fed the memory of their old king's sins until it was a monster of its own to put down.

And now this.

Perhaps it was at long last time to let the old king rest in his grave.

Langfei launched directly out of his roll in a lunge, a strike aimed for his opponent's sword arm, calculating that this fight favored him in two ways. The challenger was already spent from his trek up the mountain, and no amount of resolve would last him forever. Langfei intended to wear him down, restrain him, keep him long enough to disarm him of his revenge. All the better if Langfei could disarm him ahead of that, but someone as incensed as the man before him should not be underestimated lest there be further loss of life.

It didn't matter, that the list of dead Zhuiying carried in his head hadn't been added to in years. He simply believed that the Wolf had gotten so good at mauling his prey that the names never reached his ears.

He skidded through the snow as his target leapt to the side, slamming his heel hard enough into the ground to bring up dark earth in the white bank. He spun, barely catching the lunge with the edge of his blade, deflecting it only enough to hear the hum of the blade vibrating just beside his face.

He launched into another attack, but each blow he attempted to land was met with a parry - each lunge with a dodge. Each breath invited another attack.

Every time he twisted to avoid the strike, he left a fresh trail of blood in his wake, and soon the churned snow and earth bore enough of his blood to nearly be called kin. He was getting slower with every pass, his chest heaving, his eyes sharp as daggers. Each of his attacks was becoming more wild, leaving himself wider and wider open as he struggled to converse his energy for the assault and abandon his own defence. He felt pain erupt on his shoulder but still he kept fighting, each swing getting more and more erratic.

He was going to die. The knowledge hit him with a strange amount of lucidity, and yet he found he couldn't bring himself to care. If he could not complete his task, he deserved to die.

If he could not complete his task, his life would be devoid of every purpose he had known.

He lunged, putting all his remaining energy in a final strike, but off-balancing himself so badly that there would be no way to protect himself should his prey survive to retaliate.

The fight grew troubling to Langfei long ago. The manner of his assault, the desperation in his erratic movements— The more he flagged, the more reckless he became. This man did not come here to avenge; he came to lay down his life in the only way he knew how. And he would not allow himself to be stopped, that much Langfei could tell by this late point in their battle. Only blood would satisfy, and by now it did not seem to be important whose.

At that last wild strike, Langfei made a calculated risk for this stranger, murderer of his men. Shifting rather than dodging altogether, he took the blow in his side and used the momentum to wrench the weapon from his opponent's hands. However, on the tail of that success, before Langfei could do anything to restrain the man, his opponent slipped, fell into him.

Instinctively, Langfei dropped his own weapon to catch him.

They fell, Langfei on his back against the ice, a low hiss of pain on his breath at shock to the fresh wound in his side. The wolf mask, too, fell, revealing a young man's face.

Between them, something twinged, a thin red cord flaring to life.

Langfei's brow furrowed, head cocking to the side in the way of puzzled dogs.

"...............Qiuqiu?"

He felt it. Felt the resistance against his blade, felt it jump in his hand as it cut through cloth and flesh. He should feel victorious, but he didn't. He should feel anything, but he didn't. All he felt was numb and pain and--

His foot found no traction at the end of his step - the snow that had melted and mixed with blood had refrozen, the ice offering him no purchase when he put his weight upon it. He heard the clatter of a sword at the same time he felt arms cushion his fall.

It wasn't entirely successful.

They hit the ground, but the arrow in Zhuiying's shoulder caught against the earth and shoved suddenly and brutally deeper. He coughed, splattering blood on the man below him, his lips stained a dark red as the world started getting hazy. The edges of his vision were blurring and the world was starting to spin around him, and--

Qiuqiu?

Time stopped. All sound evaporated, his entire existence focusing down to a single point. He hadn't heard that name since his parents had died, and they had stopped calling him that long before then.

He turned his eyes up, something like shock and grief on his face, his muscles strained, the blood trailing down his chin as he finally saw the face of his target. His opponent. His prey.

Something clawed at his throat from within - a sob not actually voiced - as his face cracked. No. No, no, no. It couldn't be -- he wouldn't--

"Xiao... Tian..."

His eyes rolled back and the world went black.

Edited (fucking just kill me) 2020-01-04 18:41 (UTC)

There was so much to be done.

Clutching the stranger who was not a stranger at all to his chest, Langfei ordered his surviving packmates to boil water, to bring him dressings for wounds, to see to the dead and give him a count of the fallen. He let none touch the man gripped in his arms, rare to raise his voice but readily dismissing any who gazed upon them with resentment or disdain.

Langfei took his friend—surely they were still friends?—to his own quarters, the old boss's den, and laid him out on the furs. Saw to the wounds, peeled back layer after layer of blood-soaked robes more pink than white. He caught sight of something glinting on the other man's wrist as the last layer came away, a bracelet with a charm. A lock, the kind given to children during their first month celebration.

He stopped to trace unsteady fingers over its shining surface, etched with a name long lost in his memories.

Hong Gaowen.

Swallowing against an all at once dry throat, Langfei returned to the task of tending, dressing each cut with patient reverence, his own injury merely clamped down on with a compress to stop the bleeding. He would get to that later, after, far less pressing than the task at hand.

He finished with his friend, his Qiuqiu, wrapped in a clean robe, tucked up under his furs with a candle burning steadily nearby for light. He poured himself a drink, started on dressing his own wounds, and waited for his friend to wake again.

Nightmares.

He always had them, they never changed. Faceless forms pillaged and plundered, buildings burning towards the sky, the dead littering the ground. He was always a child.

He didn't stir in his sleep, didn't utter a sound until he felt his consciousness slowly bubbling to the surface, light slowly piercing his vision as his eyes cracked open.

He was alive. That was a surprise. And he was in pain, but not as much as he expected.

He raised a hand, silently, to the wound on his shoulder, only to find it already dressed. Then another, to his arm-- To his side--

He grunted softly as he sat up, his body screaming at him as his eyesight adjusted to the low lamp light.

His gaze slowly turned to the other figure in the room. The Iron Wolf. The man he'd hunted now for so many years...

He didn't speak. He just looked. He had a hazy dream of hearing his name, but - was this really the same man...?

The Iron Wolf turned, sensing movement. Then, of all things, his face broke out in a warm—if tired—smile.

"You shouldn't get up. I'm gonna get real cranky if you tear something open and I have to dress your wounds all over again," he murmured, then laughed as he turned to face the other man better. "Well, not that cranky since I'd also get to take your clothes off again, but..."

Eyes soft in the flickering firelight, Langfei reached out to take up the wrist wearing the lock gifted to him as an infant, which he in turn had given to the one person in the world he'd wanted to be safe the most. Back then, every day for them was spent in the sun. Langfei wouldn't have been able to imagine the kind of cold that awaited him if asked. All he'd known was he had a family he loved who loved him back, and his red string took him to someone who was already at his side who he'd do anything for.

"...thank you for remembering my name for me, even when it was lost to me," he whispered low, bowing his head to touch his lips to the silver charm where it sat.

The Death Bringer did not smile. His expression was one torn between attempting to keep the calm impassive look of the Lan Sect and confusion. Grief.

Not quiet hope.

He didn't interrupt as the bandit spoke, but neither did he lie back down. He merely watched the man approach, following him with wary, sharp eyes. Take your clothes off again didn't seem to outwardly phase him. After all, he'd been attempting to do far worse to his own body than merely render it naked. The flirtation seemed to go right over his head.

His attention was too focused elsewhere.

He didn't resist as his wrist was taken, watching with that sharp piercing gaze, his muscles quietly tensing as if readying for a fight. But then the man continued and the grief slipped back into his expression again.

His fingers curled into a fist, not returning the touch even as he watched the Wolf's lips touch metal.

"You aren't the Iron Wolf," he said finally, his voice far far deeper than the happy tones of his childhood. "... He killed you. You were dead. You--"

"He took me in," Langefi corrected softly, not releasing his friend, his destiny's hand even as he straightened to meet his gaze once more. "Raised me here, among the ice and stone. And I killed him for his trouble. I've been the Iron Wolf since."

Pausing to shrug, Langfei gestured to the cavern room around them, indicating the passes beyond where the rest of his people could be heard moving about, tending to their own business.

"I've been looking over my pack since. Forgive me, Qiuqiu," he murmured, lips cracking into a smile at the simple act of forming the shape of his dear friend's childhood nickname. "I imagined you would forget me. I used to... imagine running away, following our bond until I found you, but I didn't... I couldn't—"

Langfei stopped. He swallowed hard, took in a breath to try again, blinking back tears as he looked away.

"By the time I was old enough to run, I was old enough to know I couldn't burden your family that way."

He'd managed to keep a fairly even response at first. It saddened him, of course it did. Facing the weight of lost years.

He shut his eyes at the name, breathing out tensely. That, he wouldn't be able to take. That child was long gone. All it did was tug at his heart to remember a happier time that he would never obtain again. Even if Gaowen was alive, their parents were not. Their families were torn and broken, and the carefree nature that had once filled Zhuiying's cheeks with endless smiles had be snuffed and turned cold.

But it wasn't until the last sentence that he broke.

He wrenched his wrist away, the anger flashing in his expression, the gold glinting off his wrist at the same time he noticed another colour. Red. Faint. Fading. But it was there.

His heart lurched.

"Fool."

The word was as scathing as it was heartbroken. "The only burden I ever carried was your death." The very idea that all this? All this death, all this vengeance, could have been saved simply if Gaowen hadn't considered himself a burden?

He felt the sting of heat rise at the edges of his vision, and he used his weak arm to shove at Gaowen even though it did almost nothing. He had no energy left, and no real desire to hurt him. This was pure grief, lashing out.

"I would have done anything for you. How could you possibly be a burden?"

A pained expression passed over Langfei's gentle features, a cloud of grief that comes and goes as he tried to instead smile for his friend. At the shove, he caught the offending hand to pull his would-be assailant into his arms instead, careful with that injured shoulder as he braced his friend against his chest to pull the fight out of him. His arms wind around Qiuqiu tight and do not relent, offering no escape from their present reality.

"We were children. What did we know of sacrifice?" he offered in that same soft tone, the connection bright between them in their mutual turmoil, their grief. He believes without question that Qiuqiu means those words, yet he could not have obligated his friend to his entire life at any point when his life was still in upheaval. And after... Surely he was forgotten. Surely the life he had here was the all he had to look toward anymore. "I'll admit to my foolishness. I truly did believe you'd forget me, yet I've never stopped thinking of you. I should have realized my mistake."

Lifting a hand, Langfei cupped his friend's cheek, thumb caressing over rosy, cold-bitten skin.

"...will you forgive me for failing you?"

He didn't resist. Couldn't. He had neither the energy, or the desire - folding at once to press his weight into the other man's chest, burying his face against his shoulder. He could feel the thin strip of his headband pressing into his forehead between them.

His heart clenched, his breath coming short, his eyes stinging until he squeezed them tightly shut. He was at the end of his rope, and he'd expected to hang from it - and yet here he found himself in a warm embrace and a gentle touch. He doesn't deserve it and it isn't fair, but he wants it so badly...

He doesn't reply, even as it feels like the only nerve endings he has anymore are the ones that lie beneath Gaowen's thumb.

He wouldn't speak to forgiveness. Wouldn't admit that it didn't matter if he forgave or not - he could hardly pull away now in either case. Instead, he just lay quietly slumped against him for a long moment before murmuring:

"... I never pictured you older," he admitted, almost shamefully. His voice was the low rumbling of distant thunder. "I never pictured you alive. If you have failed me, then my faithlessness has failed us both."

Edited (remember when i said i switched tenses all the time) 2020-01-05 02:50 (UTC)

"Be gentle with yourself," Liangfei answered, voice slipping back into his Iron Wolf register, firm and commanding. It was as much a chide as a request, his hold on Qiuqiu possessive and protective in equal measure. He soaked in the storm of his companion willingly, gratefully, eagerly, glad to just be able to reach for what he thought lost to him forever.

"You believed me dead. We were so young, Qiuqiu. We were so..." Voice cracking, Langfei tries to summon a laugh but it too came out broken. There was scarcely a shadow of the bright, irrepressible boy he'd known, so twisted with grief and loss and vengeance his friend had become. And Langfei had allowed that, had contented himself with a quiet life on this mountain because he convinced himself it was better.

"We could not have known better. We both did the best we were able, surely, surely..." He allowed an ounce of forgiveness for himself because he wanted it for Qiuqiu as well. Leading by example was all he'd ever done so he attempted it now, one hand pressed to the small of his friend's back, the other cradling his face still.

"Have we not wasted enough of our years? Let's set aside these regrets. Tell me everything, Qiuqiu. All I missed. Tell me who you are now."

He could hear his own grief reflected and refracted in the other man's voice. Hear his own pain echoed back to him. It deepened his sorrow but also returned some of his resolve, and he pulled back - sitting up straight - letting his eyes meet those of Gaowen's. He did not pull far enough to feel the man's fingers leave his cheek, but nor did he return the touch.

"... I have not been Qiuqiu since the day you were lost," he says, his voice low and firm. He had never expected to have to introduce himself again, and the misery edged into his voice.

"... I am Yi Zhuiying, outer disciple of the Lan Sect. I am not... I am not the child you knew. I won't be again. He hunted the wolf for far too long."

His eyes fell to his wrist, and he moved to gentle touch the bracelet, long delicate fingers passing over the cold metal. "I had thought I would wear this until he was dead," he murmured, before raising his eyes again. "... But now, instead, I can return it."

"But you are still mine," Langfei contested without pause, hand leaving Qiuqiu's—Yi Zhuiying, the name held a distant familiarity in his mind—cheek only to grip his wrist to keep him from removing the bracelet. Then Langfei smiled, focusing on the space between them to cause their red string to flare back to life, a soft glow weaving through their joined hands.

"Whatever you're called, whoever you've become. What's important hasn't changed. And since you've come for the life of the Wolf," he went on, lacing their fingers together and holding fast, "take it. It's your due. I give myself over to you, Yi Zhuiying."

His heart caught in his throat, painful and sharp, watching that red tether light between them.

He'd seen it severed. He'd wept for its frayed and broken ends, and yet--

His eyes turned sharply up at the offer, and a flash of something pained crossed his face. Almost too fast, he finally reached out - fingers gripping the Wolf's chin too tightly. He surged forward only to break at the last second, breathing hard.

A temptation, a longing - but he didn't deserve either and he couldn't take it.

His grip tightened, then released as he turned his head away.

"You don't even know me," He whispered. "And If you've been wearing the Wolf's pelt this whole time... then I don't know you, either."

It was almost be audible, the pang of Langfei's heart at Zhuiying's rebuff. His jaw clenched briefly, nostrils flaring with a sharp inhale of breath. The candlelight reflected in Langfei's eyes softened further as they wet with tears he swallowed down once more. Eyes squeezing shut to force composure, he shook his head as he met Zhuiying's gaze now with quiet resolve.

"...I know you came to avenge me. That you never abandoned my memory. That you have a great sense of duty, and such love in your heart," he counted, echoing Zhuiying's movements by gripping his partner's chin in return, his grasp firm but still terribly gentle.

"I know you are hard on yourself. And I know you are still all I've ever wanted in this life. I know I would move heaven and earth to see you smile."

Zhuiying wasn't made of stone. How could he possibly be unmoved by those words coming from the lips of someone he had mourned for so many years? His heart skipped a beat, the pulse lighting up the thread of red around his wrist, brightening by the barest degree.

He let out a low 'tsk' sound, casting his eyes down though he didn't pull his face from the Wolf's grip.

"I don't even know what to call you," he muttered in complaint, not having the heart to argue the rest. To tell the man what a fool he was. This wasn't duty - it was a death wish. Even he knew that. But he wanted to believe that faith in him so badly... "Hong Gaowen. I know they don't call you that here. If I'd heard even a whisper of it, before today..."

"They call me Langfei."

Blushing at the answer, the fabled Iron Wolf of Snowshade Peak at least had the decency to look embarrassed at the dramatic nature of his name. He'd picked it out for himself as a teen, after all, before then simply addressed as 'boy'. Lang for 'wolf', wolf cub that he was, lying in wait for the throne. But also fei for 'flight', for hope, that he might take wing and be free of this life and go home.

But wolves could not fly, and Langfei stayed grounded, stayed exiled, stayed lost.

Until today.

"...I'd forgotten it. My name. When I tried to remember, all I could think of was 'Xiao Tian' being called in your voice. I'm glad you remembered for us both." Smiling bright and warm, Langfei nudged Zhuiying's face to summon his gaze, wanting him to see what came next.

"Thank you for keeping me alive in your heart, Zhuiying. Thank you for giving what I thought I lost."

His name. His past. His future.

Saying nothing more, Langfei leaned in slow to claim Zhuiying's lips with his own.

Langfei. He burned it into his mind. He would not forget it. He could lose almost anything else, but he wouldn't lose Langfei again.

He let his eyes rise, the smile that they met almost blinding. How could he smile like that? Zhuiying couldn't remember a time he'd ever smiled like that. Certainly not at someone who had just killed several of his men and then stabbed him--

If I'd actually killed him, he realised, his gut wrenching, I would never have forgiven myself, not even over a thousand lives.

It made his heart ache, to get a thank you after delivering such death to his doorstep, and Zhuiying's lips parted to deny it, to reject it, to tell him that he couldn't thank him and that he shouldn't and--

He couldn't utter a sound. Before he could try, Langfei was leaning in, pressing warm lips to his own - slightly chilled, from the loss of blood and the temperature - and something in Zhuiying's chest crumpled.

His desires as a child had never been specific. Langfei had spoken to marriage, or course, and Zhuiying had happily agreed. After all, that was what the tie that bound them meant, right? Who could argue with fate itself? But the idea of marriage as a child was a vague one. It was a promise to be together, a promise to face the world together. Hold hands in the face of adversity. But that was where the desires had ended. And when that dream had died, Zhuiying had killed a part of his heart with it. Why desire something you could never have?

No one had dared to kiss him, before, and he stared with open eyes at the face of the man who had so easily claimed it, as if it was as natural as breathing. He pulled in a shaky breath - even as their lips still touched. But then, a heart beat later, he was surging forward, pressing a far harder kiss to Langfei's mouth and reaching up to clasp his face between his hands. He had never wanted something so badly, as to kiss this man. To hear his name again on his lips, over and over.

For Langfei, the translation of his childhood wants to his adulthood reality was a far simpler one. His devotion to the partner chosen for him by destiny itself had always been single-minded and consuming, putting such blinders on him that he could think of nothing else. Back then, seeing Qiuqiu had been all he wanted, playing with Qiuqiu all the joy there was to be had in the world. Qiuqiu's laughter was the brightest, his cries the most rending. Langfei's world had but a single center, and it was the boy marked for him by fate.

None of that had changed. Zhuiying remained all that Langfei wanted, those childish dreams rushing back and gaining the perspective of age and maturity. Being all he wanted held greater depth now, greater scope, but the core of it remained the same.

Zhuiying was everything, was who he wanted to share his every moment with, was the one he wanted to defend, to protect, to raise up high. He'd fulfill every innocent promise he'd ever made when they were children, to always care for him above all others, to always return, to always share in all his joys and all his sorrows.

Everything, all of it. Starting right here, starting with this.

Having the kiss returned so abruptly prompted a startled noise from him that quickly turned to a bright laugh, hands going to Zhuiying's hips to ease him closer, ever mindful of his partner's injuries. Then he melted readily into the kiss, feeling like nothing so much as though he'd finally come home. His lips parted in invitation, fingers strumming artfully up Zhuiying's sides.

The laugh wrenched his heart - it had barely changed, the only difference being a deeper tone than in youth. He wasn’t hard to lead, shifting to the edge of the bed, feeling Langfei’s hands at his sides.

It grew far too difficult to think, suddenly, a wealth of nameless emotions welling up inside him, impossible to parse. It was instinct more than thought that had his part his lips, had him deepen the kiss when offered that silent invitation. Hunger made up for lack of skill, but while he was careful of Langfei’s wound, he’d forgotten his own. He strained and his wounds screamed at him, sharp pain reminding him of their presence.

He broke off the kiss, breathing hard, and pressing his forehead to the other man’s.

“Langfei,” he whispered quietly, as if testing the name.

And then, his voice thick as he pressed another kiss the man’s lips: “I am sorry I am so late.”

"Zhuiying," Langfei repeated in answer, voice rough with determination, resolute that he would always respond in kind. Never again would Zhuiying call his name and be met with silence. Never, never.

"There's no such thing as late," he went on, eyes shut and expression at peace, his faith moored in the depth of his love and unshakable, "when we have forever. That's what I always thought, what I hoped, what I carried in my heart. If not this life, then the next. Surely."

He prayed to the heavens and he prayed to the hells, pleaded and bartered with fate itself. And now, it seemed, she had finally answered.

Grasping Zhuiying once more by the hips, he shifts to gingerly lower his partner onto the bed, pushing him down on his back before he can do any further damage to himself. Crawling halfway atop him, Langfei grins and brushes a stray lock hair out of his eyes, peering down at him warmly.

"...may I?"