it's. a lot. it's a lot, to hear the little song again - distantly, he recognizes it, somewhere, underneath the trauma, that it played before. he recognizes that wolfwood died, even remembers feeling shock and worry for shenhe when they saw the cross shaped gun, but - then, then he saw luo yiguo and the gun and nothing else mattered.
he lets shenhe pull him into her arms, completely numb. he's still trembling, and the tears coming down his face are foreign and distantly unfamiliar, but it works. the electricity dies down, until he's soaking the material of her shirt as he slowly, slowly turns his head down.
[she keeps holding him. tries to remember what people have done for her. it's hard to do, but she eventually figures it out, and rubs his back, slow and rhythmic.]
Answer me. [she says, sternly. she has half a mind to shake him until he does, even if she knows that'd be bad. she doesn't, but the thought is there, briefly, before she shifts gears. she scoots a little further onto the bed so she isn't at an awkward angle, and then, trying to drown out the song stuck in her head, she starts to hum.
and yes, it is you raise me up. she'll hum it over and over and over until he answers her.]
[ it's the familiar bars that start to finally work. like trying to throw a lasso on a cloud, fei du's almost out of his body and existence, but it's something familiar. he's used it to anchor himself down and remind himself a thousand different times. to remind himself, that he failed his mother. that she died, that he had to do everything he could to try and dismantle the things that led his mother there. and now, to remind himself of this - that everything he did to try and protect luo wenzhou didn't matter. it didn't fucking matter.
he takes a heaving, deep breath, and shudders. like this, it's so obvious that he is so, so so fragile, like a tiny, fluttering bird, like a glass animal, barely held together in pieces. fei du shudders, and he manages to lift his head, a tiny bit, and doesn't say anything, again. the violent, painful thoughts continue, but they feel hollower, and eventually -
she hasn't been fragile since she was six years old. if this is what she can do, if she can use the way she has been trained to not feel anything at all - if she can use that to help humanity, that's... that's what cloud retainer meant. she can use that strength to gently hold the glass creature in her hands and make sure it doesn't shatter. that's a good use of strength. it's a better use than being a weapon destined to slice her friends in half.
he reinforced the steel bars when she came back a week ago, made sure all the weak spots wouldn't crumble, so now she can be a shield. she can stop the wind and rain and thunder from hitting him. she can try to block the blows.]
[ there's a full body shudder, and fei du seems resistant, at first - not so much to the touch, or to shenhe's presence, but to the fact that he doesn't want to be here. he doesn't want to exist in this version of reality, not right now, not anywhere. he wants to electrocute himself to feel until he can't, to pass out in a chair with nodes strapped to his chest and the reminder that he's failed. he wants to - he wants to find whoever did that to luo wenzhou and strangle the life out of them, wants to flay them alive and hang them like a reminder in the center of japanfornia to anyone who'd ever dare to try - no, no, he can't think like that, no -
he shivers, again, and shakes his head, letting out an almost mournful - ] Shenhe. [ Please. No. Please. ]
[it breaks her heart to hear it, and her eyes burn. the tears don't come, though, they never do.]
You have to. [she says, sharply.] You have to be here. I can't kill you.
[matsui had put her out of her misery for a few hours but she can't do that to fei du. because it wouldn't help him, but it also wouldn't help her, and she's not fragile, but she knows her breaking points. she is trying. she's trying very hard.]
[ actually being put out of his misery for a couple of hours sounds kind of great, but he's not going to say that. even if his own thoughts are a wild, grieving mess, he doesn't voice it, because even under all of his own pain and suffering, he's too instinctually kindhearted to ever want to hurt shenhe. and he knows, he knows from last week, that he could never do that to her.
the truth is that he doesn't want to die. he doesn't want to hurt himself that badly. he just wants to - wants to stop thinking for a while, wants to go to sleep and wake up in a world where this was a fucking miserable nightmare, like the thousands of other times he's dreamed this before.
he hiccups, again, and finally just gives up, stilling almost entirely as all of the fight goes out of him. ]
No. [ i couldn't stop it i couldn't control it who would ever do that to him who would ever i saved him last time i could've just ] ...no.
[ no. it's not his fault. i'll find whoever did this and i'll - no, no, you raise me up, no, i'll - ] He didn't - he shouldn't -
[ another hiccup, the noise tiny and miserable, a wounded animal. ] Why?
[she agrees, firmly, exhaling short. she - moves, again, shifts so that she can sit on the bed and gather him in her lap. it's a little awkward, but so is she. carefully, she tucks his hair behind his ear and - if he lets her, takes his glasses off so that she can wipe his face again.]
I don't know why. It is unfair. And I'm sorry that it happened.
[ fei du is more like a marionette than a person, at the moment, all gangly limbs and dissociated but he goes wherever shenhe wants him to go. there's not much reaction to anything, not the touch, even though his thoughts crumble together at it, like a car trying to restart, and she's allowed to take his glasses off.
it's the illogical choice of it all. it's the fact that there's still a team with three people walking around, selfishly. it's the fact that he was supposed to be safe. even more cruelly, it's a reminder - it's a reminder of the same lesson he was beaten with last week, that every sacrificial chess move never guarantees anything, that fei du's deal with froggystyle on his deathbed was irrelevant in the end, because luo wenzhou is dead. it's the fact that luo wenzhou is a force of irreparable good, and even if the loss is temporary, even if he'll see him on sunday, it doesn't change the fact that someone did it anyway.
someone did it anyway. thoughtshare is bad, but emotionshare would be worse, because he's an abyss of grief and despair and fury and a thousand other things all at once, rotting off a piece of his broken, ruined heart and letting it shatter. he's so tired. he's so angry. he's so -
you can cry, shenhe says. fei du almost laughs. the noise is wet, and tiny, and miserable, and he wants to say i don't know how to, because the idea is ridiculous, but there are tears streaming down his face already and he just shudders and turns his face away from the light, curling up on himself. ]
He wasn't supposed to. [ die. he wasn't supposed to die. ]
[she takes his glasses off, then, and very carefully puts them aside for now.
when he curls, she brings a hand up and runs it through his hair, rhythmically. he can cry, he can just - he can do whatever he wants, as long as it isn't trying to hurt himself. it makes her feel sick to think about him trying to electrocute himself, the way looking at blood makes him want to throw up. she's trying not to think about it, to relate to the palm on his chest the way she dig her ice-coated nails into her own skin, years and years ago.]
He wasn't. [she agrees, closing her eyes.] But he did. And now you have to exist with that.
[there is no other choice, as much as she wishes there was.]
I wrote Jonas a letter. [she says, voice quiet.] I told him that I was forced to forgive much faster than I would have liked. And you might also have to do that. I'm sorry. I don't want that for you.
But he will be here on Sunday. [I wish it had been Nahri.] I will stay with you until then, so that if you need to hurt someone, you hurt me.
fei du has always been grieving. sometimes, he lives in a villa that's been reconstructed like a mausoleum, every detail perfectly reflected as it was the day he opened his bedroom door and saw his mother's corpse, like a reminder, from artificial flowers to an ashtray even though he doesn't smoke.
he is always just existing with it, and he'll exist with this, too. fei du will hold onto this for the rest of his life, even if it's temporary, even though he knows he'll see wenzhou on sunday. it's going to rot him from the inside out, and he won't tell a single soul about it, either. forgiveness is one thing - he'll have to fight with himself over it but ultimately, his own sense of right and wrong is strong enough he will keep himself from being cruel if it takes hurting himself to do it, but he keeps that to himself, too, even if his fragmented thoughts spike a little at the idea.
still. fei du listens to shenhe when she talks. he's not sobbing, or anything - the tears keep coming, and he's still shaking, his thin shoulders violently shuddering every now and then, but he's silent, and still, the complicated and miserable static of his thoughts making him hard to read. they don't loosen until she finishes, and he thinks, this time - no, but it's a different kind, violent in the opposite direction, stunned. no. no, he can't, he wouldn't.
a hand lifts, finally, and curls tight in the back of her clothes. no. he can't say he wishes it was nahri too - he thinks about her letter, about the weight she must be feeling right now with wenzhou and wolfwood both dead, and shivers, holding on. ]
... I won't. [ hurt you. it's quiet, wrung out and miserable. ]
[she's surrounded by stubborn men who won't let her help them every day of her life
when he holds onto her, finally, she presses her nose against his hair and holds him a little more tightly. the distant sort of jumbled thoughts he's having are hard to read and she can't quite make sense of them, but she gets the general gist. that he's going to rot, and not let himself heal. that he's going to take responsibility for something that he didn't do. that he won't hurt her, but he'll hurt himself.
there's frustration in her, her own thoughts a mess of anger and staticky bad, but she doesn't voice them. it's hard, when you have such a different view of death. but she stays where she is.]
Then don't. But if you hurt yourself, I will tie you to a chair and drag you around behind me. [...] I care about you and it upsets me when you forget that.
[ yeah its funny when he says things like "haha death doesn't matter" (turns around and violently grieves for a decade) sometimes you are so good at larp
the threat gets a little bit of a reaction. a wet, miserable laugh, a twitch in his shoulders. okay. that sounds fine. actually, that sounds kind of nice. he wants to be knocked out so he doesn't hurt anyone. he wants to get violently drunk and sleep and pretend this is a dream. he'd tie himself up, too. god knows he does it willingly.
the bad thoughts cycle continues, but it dissolves out mostly, staticky and quiet, a low hum accompanied by discordant violin, and he shudders, one last time. it feels like he's going to be sick.
but he lets shenhe's words try and stick, try and melt into his chest and stay. ]
... I know. [ it's a little hoarse, this time. heavy. the tears have finally stopped, like a leaky, broken faucet. ] I know.
[ and it's echoed, there, in his thoughts.
... ]
... I need... I need you to stay. [ he'll admit that much. a stumble, in the right direction towards care. ] With me. Tomorrow. If -
[ clarity, then. a thought like a light in the darkness of his own despair. If someone says something about this or calls it karma, I will hurt them.
a hand, shakily reaching out for help in the dark. ]
[she says, without hesitation. she closes her eyes.]
I will stay with you. And I will do my best to make sure you don't hurt anybody. But I believe you won't.
[and she means that - she'll be with him for as long as he needs her. he's earned that loyalty. she'll stay now, too, in this hotel room, rocking him gently, letting you raise me up drift through her thoughts as she does.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
it's. a lot. it's a lot, to hear the little song again - distantly, he recognizes it, somewhere, underneath the trauma, that it played before. he recognizes that wolfwood died, even remembers feeling shock and worry for shenhe when they saw the cross shaped gun, but - then, then he saw luo yiguo and the gun and nothing else mattered.
he lets shenhe pull him into her arms, completely numb. he's still trembling, and the tears coming down his face are foreign and distantly unfamiliar, but it works. the electricity dies down, until he's soaking the material of her shirt as he slowly, slowly turns his head down.
he doesn't respond. ]
no subject
Answer me. [she says, sternly. she has half a mind to shake him until he does, even if she knows that'd be bad. she doesn't, but the thought is there, briefly, before she shifts gears. she scoots a little further onto the bed so she isn't at an awkward angle, and then, trying to drown out the song stuck in her head, she starts to hum.
and yes, it is you raise me up. she'll hum it over and over and over until he answers her.]
no subject
he takes a heaving, deep breath, and shudders. like this, it's so obvious that he is so, so so fragile, like a tiny, fluttering bird, like a glass animal, barely held together in pieces. fei du shudders, and he manages to lift his head, a tiny bit, and doesn't say anything, again. the violent, painful thoughts continue, but they feel hollower, and eventually -
... You. ]
no subject
she hasn't been fragile since she was six years old. if this is what she can do, if she can use the way she has been trained to not feel anything at all - if she can use that to help humanity, that's... that's what cloud retainer meant. she can use that strength to gently hold the glass creature in her hands and make sure it doesn't shatter. that's a good use of strength. it's a better use than being a weapon destined to slice her friends in half.
he reinforced the steel bars when she came back a week ago, made sure all the weak spots wouldn't crumble, so now she can be a shield. she can stop the wind and rain and thunder from hitting him. she can try to block the blows.]
What else?
no subject
he shivers, again, and shakes his head, letting out an almost mournful - ] Shenhe. [ Please. No. Please. ]
no subject
You have to. [she says, sharply.] You have to be here. I can't kill you.
[matsui had put her out of her misery for a few hours but she can't do that to fei du. because it wouldn't help him, but it also wouldn't help her, and she's not fragile, but she knows her breaking points. she is trying. she's trying very hard.]
This isn't your fault, you idiot.
no subject
the truth is that he doesn't want to die. he doesn't want to hurt himself that badly. he just wants to - wants to stop thinking for a while, wants to go to sleep and wake up in a world where this was a fucking miserable nightmare, like the thousands of other times he's dreamed this before.
he hiccups, again, and finally just gives up, stilling almost entirely as all of the fight goes out of him. ]
No. [ i couldn't stop it i couldn't control it who would ever do that to him who would ever i saved him last time i could've just ] ...no.
[ no. it's not his fault. i'll find whoever did this and i'll - no, no, you raise me up, no, i'll - ] He didn't - he shouldn't -
[ another hiccup, the noise tiny and miserable, a wounded animal. ] Why?
no subject
[she agrees, firmly, exhaling short. she - moves, again, shifts so that she can sit on the bed and gather him in her lap. it's a little awkward, but so is she. carefully, she tucks his hair behind his ear and - if he lets her, takes his glasses off so that she can wipe his face again.]
I don't know why. It is unfair. And I'm sorry that it happened.
[fullstop. no buts. she's just sorry.]
You can cry. You should cry. I won't go anywhere.
no subject
it's the illogical choice of it all. it's the fact that there's still a team with three people walking around, selfishly. it's the fact that he was supposed to be safe. even more cruelly, it's a reminder - it's a reminder of the same lesson he was beaten with last week, that every sacrificial chess move never guarantees anything, that fei du's deal with froggystyle on his deathbed was irrelevant in the end, because luo wenzhou is dead. it's the fact that luo wenzhou is a force of irreparable good, and even if the loss is temporary, even if he'll see him on sunday, it doesn't change the fact that someone did it anyway.
someone did it anyway. thoughtshare is bad, but emotionshare would be worse, because he's an abyss of grief and despair and fury and a thousand other things all at once, rotting off a piece of his broken, ruined heart and letting it shatter. he's so tired. he's so angry. he's so -
you can cry, shenhe says. fei du almost laughs. the noise is wet, and tiny, and miserable, and he wants to say i don't know how to, because the idea is ridiculous, but there are tears streaming down his face already and he just shudders and turns his face away from the light, curling up on himself. ]
He wasn't supposed to. [ die. he wasn't supposed to die. ]
no subject
when he curls, she brings a hand up and runs it through his hair, rhythmically. he can cry, he can just - he can do whatever he wants, as long as it isn't trying to hurt himself. it makes her feel sick to think about him trying to electrocute himself, the way looking at blood makes him want to throw up. she's trying not to think about it, to relate to the palm on his chest the way she dig her ice-coated nails into her own skin, years and years ago.]
He wasn't. [she agrees, closing her eyes.] But he did. And now you have to exist with that.
[there is no other choice, as much as she wishes there was.]
I wrote Jonas a letter. [she says, voice quiet.] I told him that I was forced to forgive much faster than I would have liked. And you might also have to do that. I'm sorry. I don't want that for you.
But he will be here on Sunday. [I wish it had been Nahri.] I will stay with you until then, so that if you need to hurt someone, you hurt me.
no subject
fei du has always been grieving. sometimes, he lives in a villa that's been reconstructed like a mausoleum, every detail perfectly reflected as it was the day he opened his bedroom door and saw his mother's corpse, like a reminder, from artificial flowers to an ashtray even though he doesn't smoke.
he is always just existing with it, and he'll exist with this, too. fei du will hold onto this for the rest of his life, even if it's temporary, even though he knows he'll see wenzhou on sunday. it's going to rot him from the inside out, and he won't tell a single soul about it, either. forgiveness is one thing - he'll have to fight with himself over it but ultimately, his own sense of right and wrong is strong enough he will keep himself from being cruel if it takes hurting himself to do it, but he keeps that to himself, too, even if his fragmented thoughts spike a little at the idea.
still. fei du listens to shenhe when she talks. he's not sobbing, or anything - the tears keep coming, and he's still shaking, his thin shoulders violently shuddering every now and then, but he's silent, and still, the complicated and miserable static of his thoughts making him hard to read. they don't loosen until she finishes, and he thinks, this time - no, but it's a different kind, violent in the opposite direction, stunned. no. no, he can't, he wouldn't.
a hand lifts, finally, and curls tight in the back of her clothes. no. he can't say he wishes it was nahri too - he thinks about her letter, about the weight she must be feeling right now with wenzhou and wolfwood both dead, and shivers, holding on. ]
... I won't. [ hurt you. it's quiet, wrung out and miserable. ]
no subject
when he holds onto her, finally, she presses her nose against his hair and holds him a little more tightly. the distant sort of jumbled thoughts he's having are hard to read and she can't quite make sense of them, but she gets the general gist. that he's going to rot, and not let himself heal. that he's going to take responsibility for something that he didn't do. that he won't hurt her, but he'll hurt himself.
there's frustration in her, her own thoughts a mess of anger and staticky bad, but she doesn't voice them. it's hard, when you have such a different view of death. but she stays where she is.]
Then don't. But if you hurt yourself, I will tie you to a chair and drag you around behind me. [...] I care about you and it upsets me when you forget that.
no subject
the threat gets a little bit of a reaction. a wet, miserable laugh, a twitch in his shoulders. okay. that sounds fine. actually, that sounds kind of nice. he wants to be knocked out so he doesn't hurt anyone. he wants to get violently drunk and sleep and pretend this is a dream. he'd tie himself up, too. god knows he does it willingly.
the bad thoughts cycle continues, but it dissolves out mostly, staticky and quiet, a low hum accompanied by discordant violin, and he shudders, one last time. it feels like he's going to be sick.
but he lets shenhe's words try and stick, try and melt into his chest and stay. ]
... I know. [ it's a little hoarse, this time. heavy. the tears have finally stopped, like a leaky, broken faucet. ] I know.
[ and it's echoed, there, in his thoughts.
... ]
... I need... I need you to stay. [ he'll admit that much. a stumble, in the right direction towards care. ] With me. Tomorrow. If -
[ clarity, then. a thought like a light in the darkness of his own despair. If someone says something about this or calls it karma, I will hurt them.
a hand, shakily reaching out for help in the dark. ]
no subject
[she says, without hesitation. she closes her eyes.]
I will stay with you. And I will do my best to make sure you don't hurt anybody. But I believe you won't.
[and she means that - she'll be with him for as long as he needs her. he's earned that loyalty. she'll stay now, too, in this hotel room, rocking him gently, letting you raise me up drift through her thoughts as she does.
they can face the world tomorrow.]