[ let's say that fei du and shenhe are back in their room now that they have one after a nice, warm bonding session. everything is great. surely nothing could go wrong here. surely that isn't a pig
anyway you know what this is already ]
[ you have been watching him.
it's been nearly six months of watching fei chengyu's every single move. your father disappears down to the basement in your home often. he takes you down there sometimes. he takes your mother down there, too. it's not important, right now, but you know this - you have to get in there. you have to do something.
you've been watching, and calculating. you're a smart kid, at ten years old. you have a tiny strip of paper hidden in your school pencil case, and there are three strings of numbers on it - combinations. you want into that forbidden room, locked with a digit combination lock, and you collect every code fei chengyu uses when you see them. his phone. his computer. his bank card, said once over a phone call. anything. anything. you know if you put in the wrong code, it will trigger an alarm, and it will be over for you, that fei chengyu will know, that you can't let that happen. you've narrowed it down through careful analysis to three possible combinations, and you're mulling them over today, on a day home sick from school, when your door opens.
you immediately hide the paper in your pencil case, look up, and make eye contact with your mother. she's a windswept, gloomy woman, thin and pale, and she's silent when she comes to your bedside holding cold medicine. she changes the towel on your forehead - scalding hot from your fever - and wipes your face gently with a clean, cold towel. it's methodic and robotic, and she won't look you in the eye. she hardly ever looks you in the eye. it's as if one false move, one look for too long, will make you both shatter, and you want to call out to her, but the words die in your throat. you open your mouth. say something, fei du. just say something.
nothing.
the woman, your mother, finishes, and seems a little brighter than before now that she's helped you. you want to talk to her, you want to say something, anything. when she starts to leave, you panic, hastily reach out and grab her arm - and when you do, you jostle your unzipped pencil case, and the strip of paper with the codes flutters to the floor.
the air seems to solidify.
after a good while, the woman bends down and picks up the pencil case and the little slip of paper. you hold your breath and clutch at your quilt, and the woman - she looks at you. she actually looks at you, with a facial expression that is so complicated you cannot even begin to start to analyze it. your mouth feels dry.
will she tell your father? will she suddenly go mad?
apprehension grips you, but - the woman, as if she hadn’t understood, puts the slip of paper back into the pencil case and gently puts it back in your lap, kisses the top of your head, then turns and leaves.
when the door shuts, you pull out the paper, hesitant - and there is a tiny fingernail mark under one of your three codes.
--
your opportunity comes three days later, in the midst of a thunderstorm.
the northern wind outside of your home howls as you look down the staircase that leads to your family's basement. on the walls, there are two massive, intricate carved dragons that seem to loom over the entrance, a marked difference from the austere decorations of the rest of your house. you descend the stairs, past the carved dragons, and you enter the code that you worked out through observation and the help of your mother - the light turns green, and the door unlocks with a soft click
your father left, for some reason. he's not home. the house smells like cleaning solution. sterile. the idea of sneaking into that basement, a forbidden place, a forbidden room, grips you, suddenly, a twin feeling of adrenaline and terror and -
the memory here is blurry. blacked out. you can hear a door open, you think, but it's - from the direction of your mother's room? it must be. you're standing in front of the door. how long have you been standing there?
it doesn't matter. you push it open, and you're faced with a room.
it's massive and exquisite, as most things in the fei home are. there's a plush carpet under your feet, and a round couch that takes up two sides of the room. a row of bookcases filled with books you can't remember the titles of go from floor to ceiling, and a blurry painting takes up the remainder of the wall itself.
a rosewood desk sits in front of the bookcases, and there are files spread out on it. papers. people you don't know, pictures, something called the picture album project and as you're combing through them - you hear footsteps. steady footsteps. someone - fei chengyu is coming.
fear grips you like a hurricane. your palms start to sweat and your heartbeat ratchets up - you back up like a panicked animal, look from left to right - under the desk, there, there's a cabinet, and you practically dive underneath it and climb into the cabinet, trembling, hand over your mouth, because you're caught, you're caught, he's coming he's coming -
and then you hear another sound. a loud crash. a clatter. fei chengyu, at the foot of the door, swears, and turns around and rushes right back up the stairs. your mother must have knocked something over - you're almost crushed with relief, and the minute he's clear, you run back up the stairs and -
no.
that isn't how it happened, is it, fei du?
let's try again.
--
the memory corrects itself, like a drifting car jerking back into a lane.
you are dragged out of the cabinet by your father, who finds you among his things and says nothing, just yanks you out by the arm and tells you to wait.
the porcelain shattering from before - it happens, you remembered that right. you look up to the stairs as fei chengyu swears and makes his way up, and then you hear your mother screaming, at the top of her lungs, fear and desperation and misery. fei chengyu grabs her by the hair and drags her across the porcelain shards on the floor - she's so fragile, so tiny, screaming as her blood flecks the expensive carpet, and drags her down the stairs to the basement. he's made you watch this so many times. he's made you watch him beat her, and instinctively, you freeze, but your flight instinct kicks in when you remember there's another man in the room.
there's another man in the room and you instinctively run - you try and hide behind his legs, hoping, praying this stranger will save you, will see what your father does, that he'll take you and your mother away and call the police or something. the man looks at you behind his legs and smiles at you. he even strokes your hair. you think, for a moment, you're going to be okay, and then he says:
"“You can’t just hide, boy.”
and you realize right then that no one is coming to save you.
fei chengyu looks across the room from where he's holding your mother by the hair and notices you, and your pupils contract, your heartbeat stops. he gets up and retrieves something, and kneels down where your mother is a wreck on the floor, then buckles something familiar around her neck. it's a white metal device, like a collar, with long wires strung out from the edge of it and another ring at the end, a small handheld device hanging down. it is a device you have seen hundreds of times, now, only this time, it's different, and you know what's coming, and -
"Darling." fei chengyu starts, knelt down from your mother, looking at you. "Who gave you the code?”
(the fingernail scratch underneath the correct code; your tireless analysis.)
you're so afraid that you can't respond. pale as a ghost, staring at the white iron collar, your heart pounding so hard you can barely hear him. fei chengyu rises, and comes to kneel in front of you.
"What did you hear?" fei chengyu asks, and his hand smells like blood when it passes by your face. he runs it through your hair. “Good children shouldn’t eavesdrop on adults talking. I know you didn’t do it on purpose. — You didn’t do it on purpose, did you?”
you're scared. you're so scared, you're so scared, that you shake your head. fei chengyu smiles, and turns his head, pointing now to the porcelain covered woman trembling across the room. “The child didn’t do wrong on purpose. If he did wrong, he must have been lured into it by an ill-meaning adult. Should we punish her, then?”
no. nononono, no, no --
you can't look your mother in the eyes, but you're forced to look at her anyway, and fei chengyu's blood soaked hands come up, beckoning you closer. you can't, no, you can't - you step backwards, backwards, until your back presses to the bookshelf, and the man whose legs you hid behind nudges you forward so you can't escape. your legs move of their own accord, like lead, as numbly, you go to your father -
and then.
the other end of the collar is buckled around your neck and the silver wires stretch taut between you and your mother. it's metal and cold and you know it because this is not the first or the fifth or even the tenth time fei chengyu has done this with you, and it hurts, it, hurts, and it's too tight, it's suffocating you --
he places the controls in your small, shaking hands.
two rings buckled on two necks. one end would only loosen a little when the other tightened. all you have to do is squeeze.
if you only clench your fists around the control, you could escape the unbearable feeling of suffocation. you've been forced through this hundreds of times. you're being strangled - you're choking, and your mother is choking, and you've been trained what to do in this situation you have to squeeze the controls so you don't choke - you had to kill the animals you had to tighten the ring to survive you've been forced into this training over and over and you squeeze so you can breathe and the puppy and the bird they die in your hands and your mother chokes and chokes and her eyes are still so numb as she stares at you and you don't want to hurt her you don't want to hurt her you have to breathe you don't want to -
"If you want total control over them, it won’t be hard,” the other man who was supposed to help you says over the sound of your mother's choking, over your tears, over the blood in your mouth and rushing in your ears and it's just so clinical - “You know how you train a hawk? If you want to tame it, you first have to weaken it. You can’t be kind. It’s necessary to starve it appropriately.”
“Starve it?” Fei Chengyu asks. (you stop squeezing and you start to choke as your mother gasps for air and you can only do it for a second, just a second, you squeeze again she's choking you have to live you don't want to hurt her mom )
“If you overfeed it, President Fei, over time, it will become greedy. If a tool doesn’t obey, it has to be honed. What kind of knife honer is afraid of breaking the knife?” the man who could have saved you's laughter is cold and he's still talking and blurry it's blurry and you're choking and squeezing the life out of her and - ]
[ when the memory ends, fei du is gasping like the ring is still around his neck - coughing, violently, his composed expression completely shattered, collapsed into the closest wall. ]
Edited (I hope this is better bc I can’t tell shit ) 2023-07-16 23:48 (UTC)
[she doesn't have a lot of time to really process it - she will, but first, she immediately goes right to fei du, grabbing at his hands and holding them.
she'll thinking about the horrifying nature of all of this in a second. she'll relate to it. she will. but first, she needs him to not be suffocating.]
You -- Fei Du. Breathe. Now. [holds his hands tightly.]
[ well, thankfully. thankfully, this isn't the first time he's seen this memory this time, so it's not as bad, but he can't stop the trauma from hitting, anyway. he coughs - violently, angrily, choking on the air in his lungs that he has to convince himself is there.
when she takes his hands, fei du's fingers flex. it's like he's still holding those controllers, still trying to soften the blow of the collar around his neck, and he wheezes - but with shenhe's commanding voice, he sucks in a deep, painful sounding breath and forces himself to try, trembling like a leaf. it's not - it's just a memory. it's just a memory, it can't hurt you, it's just a memory. breathe. you can breathe. you have to breathe. ]
[she shifts her hands, linking her fingers through his. he can squeeze her hand if he wants to, if he has to.]
Again. [she says, sharply.] In, and out.
[she feels a little nauseated. she's trying to not think too hard about what he went through. she was never scared, not of her father, not like that. she was scared, though. a long time ago. don't think. just make him breathe.]
the sharpness of the command helps. it's the same thing wenzhou would do, barking at him or panicking in desperation, using touch like an anchor, and he does the same thing, here. his hands clutch desperately onto hers, but the twitching like he's grasping for the controls.
breathe in. breathe out. the breaths are heavy, ending on a wheeze, and then - when he starts to come back to reality, when the world behind his eyes starts to look less like a sterile bleach basement with a rosewood desk, he - coughs. he coughs, loudly, like he's coughing for life, until the hacking starts to devolve, and he starts to come down.
fei du's shaking like a leaf. like this, he is so, so fragile - he finally manages to lift his head enough to look at her. ]
[the thing is, she knows that he's fragile. she has seen it, she's caused it, so she worries, when he can't breathe. she shifts, and keeps her hold, not caring that he's twitching like he is. it's alright. she is not fragile. she is the opposite of that.
so when shenhe brings them down to sit, she does it firmly. she does it with feeling. she tells him to breathe, meanly if necessary, and when he finally lifts his head, she lets go of his hand to tuck his hair behind his ear. a mimicry. something someone did for her, nahri vash wolfwood. a pause.
she feels a little like she can't breathe, too. but she does.]
[ i was so tired i didnt have enough energy to memshare
the gesture makes his expression shift, into something openly honest, an extreme rarity. it's vulnerability, the same vulnerability he shows when someone hugs him, slightly wide eyed, as she tucks a piece of his hair behind his ear. something in his chest twists, violently, and he closes his eyes and uses the tender gesture to anchor himself to reality, clinging onto something healthy instead of something cruel.
he exhales, shaky. ]
... I'm fine. [ okay. ] I'm fine. Sorry you had to see that.
I have seen worse. [not - not really, not like that. but she can lie, a little. carefully, she brings her hand back down to hold onto fei du's, stroking his hand with her thumb. little learned movements. things that made her feel better, and that she can pass on.]
... He was wrong. He hurt you. All of that is his fault. And you didn't deserve any of it.
[ it's - a strange feeling, to feel people talk about it. fei du hasn't gotten used to it yet, and a part of him wants to shy away, wants to just lie, wants to say what trauma, what problems, what hurt. it's all in the past.
...
but, before he came here, wenzhou made him promise to acknowledge it, and there's something satisfying in a way he can't really explain, when shenhe simply says, he hurt you. all of that is his fault. vindicating, maybe, for that fifteen year old boy who sat on the stoop waiting for the police officers after his mother died. begging them in his eyes to find a way to stop fei chengyu, and watching in fury as they failed. he's still that little boy, in a lot of ways.
he takes another gulp of oxygen that he's allowed to have, and starts working on categorizing his thoughts. as tight as a well oiled machine, he pushes the traumas into their neat little file folders and shuts them away, and looks back down at the hand holding his. ]
No. [ ... ] No, we didn't.
[ not just him. his mother, too, who he still misses so desperately, who he regrets more than anything else in his life. the cracked eggshell from his adventure, broken into pieces, sticks into his mind like shards of glass. ]
[she moves a little closer, and rests her forehead against his.]
You didn't. Neither of you. [she repeats.] I asked you what he did to you, weeks ago. I am glad to know the answer, if only so that I can carry it with you.
[ the forehead bonk is gentle, and familiar. fei du grounds himself in it, focuses on the sound of shenhe's voice, the words she's saying, and tries hard not to lose himself in his memories any longer. the first time he chose to remember this event, it was only broken by wenzhou shaking him out of it, with the exact same kind of anchoring personal contact.
you are not alone.
what a strange and new feeling, to have. fei du's been alone for most of his life - he's been the abyss, trapped in a hellish darkness where the worst of humanity is mired, destroying the lives of every regular person around them, dragging the world down by the ankles. it's only recently that the light has started to shine in, and it cracks open bit by bit in moments like this, when other people reach in and wrap their hand around his wrist and pull him free. for the first time, there's a tightness in his throat that has little to do with choking.
he exhales. slow. shaky, and manages a soft laugh, wry. ]
... I'd rather that you hadn't found out. [ but he doesn't pull away, either, so. that's a sign of progress, from fei du, small as it is.] ...thank you.
[she doesn't need a thank you for something like this. she understands, maybe more than he knows, regarding the abyss. and besides - in a second she's going to have to tell him sorry, because her own memory plays.
You are sitting in the garden of your childhood home, in a little village that you've grown up in. You are six years old, and your father has been away for a year, though you're not sure why. It makes you sad, sometimes, when you think about it. Your mother is gone, and the village takes turns making sure that you aren't starving, but for the most part, you're just alone, making up stories and playing with the stray dogs in the village. It's lonely. You're very lonely.
So when your father returns after that year, and he gives you a smile that borders on manic, you don't notice how it looks. You're overjoyed - father is back, and maybe this time, he won't leave. Maybe this time your curse won't drive him away. You can be good this time. You will find a way to make sure that you don't hurt him or anybody else ever again. Maybe he's forgiven you for what happened to your mother.
He doesn't even wash up, when he returns. He comes straight to the garden and smiles widely at you, and says that you should come with him to the cave in the mountains behind the village. He has a surprise for you, to make up for the fact that he hasn't been home. You don't really hope for much, but. A toy would be nice! Maybe a kite, or something that the two of you can play with together.
Your father brings you to the cave. You make sure your long black hair is out of the way, ready for whatever the surprise is.
But he barely even pays attention to you as he strides into the cave. He goes right to the altar in the middle, constructed out of stone, and he flicks through a book, and he mutters. And you take a step forward because you're unsure. Maybe you should help? You take another step forward, and then - out of the book swirls something dark and hideous, a black and rotting creature that has no shape at first as it crawls out. It drips out of the book, and your father turns and starts to walk away.
You're confused - you're a little scared, so you say, "Father?" and he ignores you, and so you look back at the shadows that soak down out of the pages, and you see it is growing teeth. It is watching you with bright blood-red eyes, and when it meets your gaze, it licks its lips.
You stumble back, and you start to cry - you are six years old, and this is the scariest thing you've ever seen - and you turn and race after your father. This isn't what he meant, right? This can't be the surprise - but he pushes you to the ground and sneers at you.
"You are a cursed child," he spits, and you stare up at him from where you're crumpled on the ground. You reach for him. No, it - no, this time, it'll be better. This time you won't bring ruin to everybody around you, you promise, you will find a way to be good, but he just shakes his head and keeps walking. "Your life brings nothing but disaster to us all."
You stand, shakily, and run, but something grabs your leg, and you scream as the monster drags you back. Your father leaves.
"At least if you die, I can bring her back." And the light from outside vanishes as the monster pulls you towards its mouth.
But as a child - a child who hasn't grown up just yet, a child who hasn't forsaken emotion and the joys of living because you know that you aren't allowed those anymore - you don't want to die. You want to play outside, and you want to make friends with the other children in the village, and you want your mother back, and you want your father to love you, and you don't want to die you don't want to die you want to live --
The sleeping calamitous fates, violent urges, and unyielding spirit within you burst their bonds all at once. They are your unseen shield, your invisible blade, and they are all that your frail form has to protect yourself. You have a dagger that belonged to your mother. Instinct has you cut open part of the monster and it wails, and you run to hide. Your next attack is with fangs and claws; you swear to tear that wretched creature before you to shreds — to prove that you, and not it, are the cruelest evil that stalked the darkness.
For days, your life-and-death battle is one without end. Hunter and hunted switch places many times, the conflict locked in stalemate. Sometimes it rips at your skin and sometimes it just chases you when it finds you. Sometimes you beat it back just enough to find some time to rest. But you are exhausted. You can't sleep. You're hungry, and you're thirsty, and everything hurts, but you don't want to die. You refuse. You won't. But there's only so much that your tiny body can handle, and eventually, you collapse. You're afraid. You know it is coming, the monster, with its snakelike body and hungry maw. But you can't find the strength to continue.
And that's when the tide changes.
A vivid icy light pierces through the dark like skyglow, showing the path to the future. A crystalline object falls down from nowhere, into your hands. You look down at it shakily, trying to breathe. You know, instinctively, that this will allow you to wield ice. That you can use this to decide which monster will live, and which will die.
You pull yourself to your feet one more time. You wipe the tears away.
It's the last time you ever cried. It's the last time you felt anything at all.
you're not alone. maybe it's not as violent, sadistic, but - you're not alone.]
[ the worst part of this memory is that it's familiar in more ways than one.
it's familiar in the way that he was here with shenhe, standing in this cave in the VR room back in the UG. he remembers - he'd never seen her look the way she did then. not so much afraid as almost violently uncomfortable, remembers the story she'd told him as they padded their way through. but more so than that...
... someone said to fei du about his own memories, that his father should have loved him. fei du knows fei chengyu wasn't capable of it, and there's something a thousand times worse to know that this father must have loved her mother, that he was capable, and cast shenhe to the side because of it. it's violently cruel in the way that his life hasn't been, and every second that passes in the memory is more brutal than the rest. he knows shenhe is tenacious and a fighter, and he knows children can be pushed to the edge, but watching this is nothing if not a reminder of how innocence can be stole and smashed to pieces with an axe, in as much as its a reminder of survival.
when the memory ends, with the crystalline vision, he exhales, a fierce, sharp noise. they're still close together - she still holds his hand, and he squeezes hers, tight, and lets its the last time you felt anything at all resonate in his ribs. ]
Shenhe. [ fei du says, very softly, in case she's still drifting in the memory the way he would be, and pushes their foreheads together a little further, reaching up to do exactly what she did for him - to push a lock of her hair back, stroking his fingers through it like a reminder. stay here. ]
[he was capable of love, is the thing, that's true. the fact that he could've accepted the loss of her mother and could've held his hands out to her but didn't... it hurts. nothing could have stood in the way of his true love. nothing.
that cave made her into the monster she is, and she's still slowly unlearning everything it taught her.
but she's had years to distance herself from it. and so when he gets her attention, she just exhales shakily and presses back. it's alright. she's here.]
I'm fine. [...] Our fathers did not love us the way they should have.
[ his heart hurts for that little girl. childhood is such a fragile thing, isn't it? how easily it can be stolen from you, ripped away by the ministrations and selfish actions of the people who were supposed to raise you.
his thumb, very gently, slides over the top of shenhe's knuckles, once he's sure she's in the present moment. he'll take the phrase - i'm fine - whether it's true or not, out of the grace that she gave him when she saw the thing that made him a monster, too.
the comment - he. laughs, just this soft, short noise. ]
No. [ no, they did not. ] What a terrible thing to have in common.
he finally pulls back just a little, enough that he can reach up and rub his face under the weight of the memories with his free hand, pushing the last bastions of shenhe's and his alike away and into his little brain filing cabinet. the comment is so sweet - he makes a soft noise in response, giving her a wry smile. ]
You shouldn't. [ there's nothing about him worth admiring, actually, because he is a trash person, but he will let shenhe say she does if she wants to. ] But... thank you, nonetheless.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
w4 sunday two
anyway you know what this is already ]
[ when the memory ends, fei du is gasping like the ring is still around his neck - coughing, violently, his composed expression completely shattered, collapsed into the closest wall. ]
no subject
she'll thinking about the horrifying nature of all of this in a second. she'll relate to it. she will. but first, she needs him to not be suffocating.]
You -- Fei Du. Breathe. Now. [holds his hands tightly.]
no subject
when she takes his hands, fei du's fingers flex. it's like he's still holding those controllers, still trying to soften the blow of the collar around his neck, and he wheezes - but with shenhe's commanding voice, he sucks in a deep, painful sounding breath and forces himself to try, trembling like a leaf. it's not - it's just a memory. it's just a memory, it can't hurt you, it's just a memory. breathe. you can breathe. you have to breathe. ]
no subject
Again. [she says, sharply.] In, and out.
[she feels a little nauseated. she's trying to not think too hard about what he went through. she was never scared, not of her father, not like that. she was scared, though. a long time ago. don't think. just make him breathe.]
no subject
the sharpness of the command helps. it's the same thing wenzhou would do, barking at him or panicking in desperation, using touch like an anchor, and he does the same thing, here. his hands clutch desperately onto hers, but the twitching like he's grasping for the controls.
breathe in. breathe out. the breaths are heavy, ending on a wheeze, and then - when he starts to come back to reality, when the world behind his eyes starts to look less like a sterile bleach basement with a rosewood desk, he - coughs. he coughs, loudly, like he's coughing for life, until the hacking starts to devolve, and he starts to come down.
fei du's shaking like a leaf. like this, he is so, so fragile - he finally manages to lift his head enough to look at her. ]
no subject
so when shenhe brings them down to sit, she does it firmly. she does it with feeling. she tells him to breathe, meanly if necessary, and when he finally lifts his head, she lets go of his hand to tuck his hair behind his ear. a mimicry. something someone did for her, nahri vash wolfwood. a pause.
she feels a little like she can't breathe, too. but she does.]
Are you with me, now?
no subject
the gesture makes his expression shift, into something openly honest, an extreme rarity. it's vulnerability, the same vulnerability he shows when someone hugs him, slightly wide eyed, as she tucks a piece of his hair behind his ear. something in his chest twists, violently, and he closes his eyes and uses the tender gesture to anchor himself to reality, clinging onto something healthy instead of something cruel.
he exhales, shaky. ]
... I'm fine. [ okay. ] I'm fine. Sorry you had to see that.
no subject
I have seen worse. [not - not really, not like that. but she can lie, a little. carefully, she brings her hand back down to hold onto fei du's, stroking his hand with her thumb. little learned movements. things that made her feel better, and that she can pass on.]
... He was wrong. He hurt you. All of that is his fault. And you didn't deserve any of it.
no subject
...
but, before he came here, wenzhou made him promise to acknowledge it, and there's something satisfying in a way he can't really explain, when shenhe simply says, he hurt you. all of that is his fault. vindicating, maybe, for that fifteen year old boy who sat on the stoop waiting for the police officers after his mother died. begging them in his eyes to find a way to stop fei chengyu, and watching in fury as they failed. he's still that little boy, in a lot of ways.
he takes another gulp of oxygen that he's allowed to have, and starts working on categorizing his thoughts. as tight as a well oiled machine, he pushes the traumas into their neat little file folders and shuts them away, and looks back down at the hand holding his. ]
No. [ ... ] No, we didn't.
[ not just him. his mother, too, who he still misses so desperately, who he regrets more than anything else in his life. the cracked eggshell from his adventure, broken into pieces, sticks into his mind like shards of glass. ]
no subject
You didn't. Neither of you. [she repeats.] I asked you what he did to you, weeks ago. I am glad to know the answer, if only so that I can carry it with you.
[she keeps stroking at his hand with her thumb.]
You are not alone.
no subject
you are not alone.
what a strange and new feeling, to have. fei du's been alone for most of his life - he's been the abyss, trapped in a hellish darkness where the worst of humanity is mired, destroying the lives of every regular person around them, dragging the world down by the ankles. it's only recently that the light has started to shine in, and it cracks open bit by bit in moments like this, when other people reach in and wrap their hand around his wrist and pull him free. for the first time, there's a tightness in his throat that has little to do with choking.
he exhales. slow. shaky, and manages a soft laugh, wry. ]
... I'd rather that you hadn't found out. [ but he doesn't pull away, either, so. that's a sign of progress, from fei du, small as it is.] ...thank you.
no subject
[she doesn't need a thank you for something like this. she understands, maybe more than he knows, regarding the abyss. and besides - in a second she's going to have to tell him sorry, because her own memory plays.
you're not alone. maybe it's not as violent, sadistic, but - you're not alone.]
no subject
it's familiar in the way that he was here with shenhe, standing in this cave in the VR room back in the UG. he remembers - he'd never seen her look the way she did then. not so much afraid as almost violently uncomfortable, remembers the story she'd told him as they padded their way through. but more so than that...
... someone said to fei du about his own memories, that his father should have loved him. fei du knows fei chengyu wasn't capable of it, and there's something a thousand times worse to know that this father must have loved her mother, that he was capable, and cast shenhe to the side because of it. it's violently cruel in the way that his life hasn't been, and every second that passes in the memory is more brutal than the rest. he knows shenhe is tenacious and a fighter, and he knows children can be pushed to the edge, but watching this is nothing if not a reminder of how innocence can be stole and smashed to pieces with an axe, in as much as its a reminder of survival.
when the memory ends, with the crystalline vision, he exhales, a fierce, sharp noise. they're still close together - she still holds his hand, and he squeezes hers, tight, and lets its the last time you felt anything at all resonate in his ribs. ]
Shenhe. [ fei du says, very softly, in case she's still drifting in the memory the way he would be, and pushes their foreheads together a little further, reaching up to do exactly what she did for him - to push a lock of her hair back, stroking his fingers through it like a reminder. stay here. ]
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that cave made her into the monster she is, and she's still slowly unlearning everything it taught her.
but she's had years to distance herself from it. and so when he gets her attention, she just exhales shakily and presses back. it's alright. she's here.]
I'm fine. [...] Our fathers did not love us the way they should have.
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his thumb, very gently, slides over the top of shenhe's knuckles, once he's sure she's in the present moment. he'll take the phrase - i'm fine - whether it's true or not, out of the grace that she gave him when she saw the thing that made him a monster, too.
the comment - he. laughs, just this soft, short noise. ]
No. [ no, they did not. ] What a terrible thing to have in common.
[ dads suck, actually? they suck. ]
You've grown so much since then, darling.
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It has been a difficult thing.
[growing, trying to figure out who she is. she stays where she is, taking that understanding. they are so alike, in some ways. that's comforting too.]
... I admire you, Fei Du. [because he has spent his whole life trying not to be what his father made him into. she's not sure she tried that hard.]
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he finally pulls back just a little, enough that he can reach up and rub his face under the weight of the memories with his free hand, pushing the last bastions of shenhe's and his alike away and into his little brain filing cabinet. the comment is so sweet - he makes a soft noise in response, giving her a wry smile. ]
You shouldn't. [ there's nothing about him worth admiring, actually, because he is a trash person, but he will let shenhe say she does if she wants to. ] But... thank you, nonetheless.