[ lin jingheng's laugh is like bells. it's so rare, and to hear it here in this tiny, soft space between them is some kind of absolution - he wants to cry, wants to laugh too, but most of all feels this immense sense of frustration, because - because he's not right. he does talk so much. he talks too much, and none of it works.
he lets him press close, hiccups out a soft little noise as he lifts his arms, away from his shirt, up and around his shoulders. clinging, like a lost, terrified child, as he tries to let it all bubble free. he's missed it, he says. ]
But it's not - you, that person you miss, he's gone, I don't know how to be him anymore.
[ there's desperation, there. he's done so many things in the seventeen years he's been gone - bad things, cruel things, necessary things. he's done things to himself beyond that, locked himself into a year of isolation and misery and threw himself into saving the eighth galaxy, building it up brick by brick. he's torn up the shreds of the optimistic young man he used to be, and he's terrified by the fact htat lin jingheng will see that and set him aside. what if he stopped? what if, in those sixteen years, what if he loved someone else? what if he
his face crumples. it's the aftereffect of the alcohol that made him bold enough for this in the first place, and it affects him here too, as he claws at lin jingheng's back and clings to him and hiccups, brown eyes welling up with tears and starlight all the same. doesn't he get it? doesn't he realize? ] Lin, I don't - I can't...
[ he's babbling, really, now. teary eyed and desperate, trying to do the right thing and say the right thing, and never quite making his mark. ]
[ don't you want to know? don't you want to ask? ask me. go on. ask me if i loved anyone else in those sixteen years and you will know that there was no one else as bright as you.
the hiccup stirs him from his listening, the fingers clawing down his back. this is boldness and alcohol and mourning for the things that they have had to do. voting feels damning and cheap. lin jingheng knows that it's just adding to the pile of what has no doubt been on lu bixing's plate for several years. ]
I have missed you.
[ four simple words as he lets his lips carefully frame where a tear threatens to escape the corner of lu bixing's eye. ]
Don't you get it. You.
[ you don't have to be the same. years will erode away at a person like tides do to cliff faces. you will never be the same as you once were. lin jingheng watches the stars projected into lu bixing's eyes, his voice dying in his throat as he watches him try to define what lin surely fell in love with those years ago.
but he is still in love now. ]
Carved from the weight of a galaxy... your shoulders are so heavy now, Lu Bixing. You think I don't see it? [ he presses their foreheads painfully together. ] You think I am not willingly walking into this with you? Still?
[ softer, the words unearthed from years of staring upwards in his silence, wishing, wanting, waiting: ] I'm holding you like this... and you think that I would sooner discard such a bright star...
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he lets him press close, hiccups out a soft little noise as he lifts his arms, away from his shirt, up and around his shoulders. clinging, like a lost, terrified child, as he tries to let it all bubble free. he's missed it, he says. ]
But it's not - you, that person you miss, he's gone, I don't know how to be him anymore.
[ there's desperation, there. he's done so many things in the seventeen years he's been gone - bad things, cruel things, necessary things. he's done things to himself beyond that, locked himself into a year of isolation and misery and threw himself into saving the eighth galaxy, building it up brick by brick. he's torn up the shreds of the optimistic young man he used to be, and he's terrified by the fact htat lin jingheng will see that and set him aside. what if he stopped? what if, in those sixteen years, what if he loved someone else? what if he
his face crumples. it's the aftereffect of the alcohol that made him bold enough for this in the first place, and it affects him here too, as he claws at lin jingheng's back and clings to him and hiccups, brown eyes welling up with tears and starlight all the same. doesn't he get it? doesn't he realize? ] Lin, I don't - I can't...
[ he's babbling, really, now. teary eyed and desperate, trying to do the right thing and say the right thing, and never quite making his mark. ]
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the hiccup stirs him from his listening, the fingers clawing down his back. this is boldness and alcohol and mourning for the things that they have had to do. voting feels damning and cheap. lin jingheng knows that it's just adding to the pile of what has no doubt been on lu bixing's plate for several years. ]
I have missed you.
[ four simple words as he lets his lips carefully frame where a tear threatens to escape the corner of lu bixing's eye. ]
Don't you get it. You.
[ you don't have to be the same. years will erode away at a person like tides do to cliff faces. you will never be the same as you once were. lin jingheng watches the stars projected into lu bixing's eyes, his voice dying in his throat as he watches him try to define what lin surely fell in love with those years ago.
but he is still in love now. ]
Carved from the weight of a galaxy... your shoulders are so heavy now, Lu Bixing. You think I don't see it? [ he presses their foreheads painfully together. ] You think I am not willingly walking into this with you? Still?
[ softer, the words unearthed from years of staring upwards in his silence, wishing, wanting, waiting: ] I'm holding you like this... and you think that I would sooner discard such a bright star...