[ lin jingheng watches this memory play out like a film at the cinema. were the subject not so dour and literally close to home, this might even constitute a date. instead, his ass hurts and his breath is slowly catching in his lungs as he watches the days and weeks go by, sees the hair curl around lu bixing's ears, watching him tear himself limb from limb.
his fingers curl around the arms of the chair, his eyes wide. there isn't a word for it, because it's both horror and tragedy, it's a man stewing in his grief. he watches him salvage zhanlu, watches him numb himself up to the point of where he has to bite down on his tongue so he doesn't say a word.
until finally the lights slowly rise. he can hear something in the background shifting, starting to switch film, but there's a short amount of time in between.
a cold sweet starts to form along his spine. and as he turns to look at lu bixing, his brows are knit and his breath won't go anywhere, a solid brick in his lungs. he fumbles in what remains of the dark to grab lu bixing's hand before he can even think about trying to escape this place without him.
uttered softly, round like it's on the verge of sadness that doesn't know how to grieve anymore. ]
Bixing.
[ he clutches his fingers, holds fast to his knuckles desperately.
the theory of magnetism that surrounds lu bixing is dangerous, like wildfire, and lin jingheng has witnessed its pull time and time again. lu bixing could see failure and forge himself anew, and finally, lin jingheng whispers: ]
I came as fast as I could.
[ this is not an excuse, he begs no forgiveness. it's the beginning of a story, and he can't tell it alone. but as he waits, he gives lu bixing the floor to speak. ]
I have the time. The means. I can tell you now... [ it makes him sick. ]
he's trying not to have a panic attack. let's put that in perspective.
lu bixing's done a really good job trying to put himself back together, here. with the help of lin and the chance to rebuild, he's been, brick by brick, able to claw himself back together. the facade he's so carefully trained and focused on building over the past seventeen years is almost, almost flawless, and the places where he's stumbled, he's had lin there to see. he's never seen the worst of it. just the cracked and broken pieces that remain.
... but this. this is everything, laid out raw.
this is every horrible part of lu bixing over the past seventeen years. this is the public executions and the experimentation, this is the track marks on his arms, the crushing, miserable grief. he sucks in a breath that feels like it's too big for his lungs and jerks backwards, and he'd almost laugh, that lin knows him so well that he grabs his hand.
for him, this is like torture.
he shuts his eyes when he hears his knife scrape through his desk the final time. he's trembling, shaking like a leaf, and the first thing out of his mouth is a choked off - ]
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
[ isn't it a time to beg forgiveness?
he barely hears what lin jingheng says over the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. over the shame that rips through his system like a wildfire. over anxious, miserable fear. lin knows, now. he knows every part. it doesn't matter that he rebuilt himself, because the ashes are still there. he wants out of this hole. he wants - he wants - ]
[ he can tell that his words are wasted, and he instead shifts some more, moves so that he can reach over and press his palms against lu bixing's ears. there's no uncertainty to it, just an instinctive moment to grab his head and turn him to look him in the eye. don't look away, don't act like you've done shameful things.
he won't scold him about weakness, won't linger over the days spent pouring over his hair... he won't... he doesn't... instead, he pushes a thumb over his lips that are babbling about being sorry. ]
Shh.
[ i don't want them, there's nothing to apologize for. but he doesn't say it, just makes sure that they've been brought to the same page of half of the story. ]
I'm here. [ the lights dim. we're in hell. ] I'm... here.
[ this has the desired effect, because it shuts lu bixing the fuck up. he lets out a hiccup of a noise that might be a sob, a lump in his throat so thick he's not sure he can talk around it, grabbing lin's wrist and holding on for dear life. the i'm here is like a drill, burrowing into his subconsciousness, and he clings on, holding tight.
- and of course, that's when the screen starts.
that's - lin jingshu, and doctor hardin, and. lin, that's lin, looking thinner than he did when he came back from fighting ares von. lu bixing is too smart not to put together the pieces, that this is one of the only pieces of lin jingheng's life that he doesn't know, now. it's the seventeen years they were apart. and lin is -
when jingshu almost injects him, he stops breathing.
and then his lin, his beautiful, his brilliant lin, finds that strand of consciousness and he lies, he lies to his sister, he manages to survive another day so effectively and so brilliantly that lu bixing's knees give out in sheer relief. he's clinging to him before he even realizes it, before the film totally stops, grabbing onto his shirt and his wrist for dear fucking life and taking in a huge, shaky gulp of air as he just forgets entirely about his own shame and fear.
it's like the first week all over again, as he grabs onto lin jingheng and pulls him into himself and holds onto him like he can remind himself he's real. he's crying before he even realizes it, thick, fat tears dripping down his cheeks as he turns his head and shoves it into lin jingheng's shoulder and just tries to force himself to calm down. he's alive. he's alive. he's alive, and he's safe, and he was a prisoner, for seventeen years and he had no idea and lu bixing was so busy fucking wallowing he never found him.
he buries his face in his shoulder and just. clings. that's all he can do, just clings, and reminds himself that lin jingheng is alive. ]
Lin. [ he says, finally, quietly, almost desperately. it's the only syllable his mouth can say. ]
[ she'd made it impossible, and for all of lu bixing's intelligence, he knew he would need to pull himself out of the proverbial cement shoes himself. lin jingheng has never learned how to save himself for someone else, but he manages it, he claws at his consciousness until his fingers bleed, until the thread dyes read and blossoms past the drugs.
he stops dissociating. maybe. a little bit. turning to lu bixing slightly in how they're so aggressively cocooned against one another. lin falls forward when he's grabbed, legs falling over the arm of the theatre seat. still, even as he's grabbed, feels the heat of lu bixing's tears falling onto his shoulder—he allows it, leans into it, and digs fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, scratching slowly. he's here, he's here.
lin jingheng leans into him fully, careful of his bad shoulder, clutching him close as zhanlu suddenly whispers a soft lullaby between the both of them, small and lilting like a finger under the chin. he holds onto him tighter. muffled, again, with feeling this time: ]
I'm sorry.
[ guilt floods him, for not explaining sooner, but how do you even explain to begin with? what do you even fucking say? it's so overwhelming he's been circling the drain between that and the moment on the ship where he'd been shot—
not him, but him. it shakes the pieces of his soul again, fragments. ]
[ alive. he's alive. he's alive. lu bixing has been repeating this mantra to himself every single day since he's gotten here, and he's doing it right now, too. he's solid. he's real. he's right here, under lu bixing's nose, in his fingers, under his body. he's grounding himself to it with every technique that his brilliant brain can manage, before he disassociates off of this plane of existence. he lets the nails at the back of his neck, the sound of zhanlu singing.
he hiccups, again, and shakes his head, burying his face in his shoulder even harder. he's soaking lin's shoulder now, his own shoulders trembling, as he breathes in. cigarette smoke and aftershave. whiskey and lin jingheng. breathe in, breathe out. breathe in, breathe out. (he almost lost him again, he'd been alive and he was miserable and trapped and he almost died and lin jingshu tried to keep him like a flower in a glass dome and lu bixing feels this irrationally angry twist of hatred that's so unlike him that it knocks him almost breathless again and he shivers, forces it back) ]
It's -
[ soft. it's not fine. it's not at all. he can't say that. ]
Two... two thousand times, you said. [ is what lu bixing manages, shakily, curling his fingers white knuckled into the fabric of lin's coat. ] I should have - We could have found you.
[ he slides fingers over the white knuckled grip lu bixing has his coat in, strokes down the trembling tendons and closes his eyes. he cocoons them in, and the theatre remains fairly dark and still just for the two of them. ]
She made sure we'd never be found...
[ "i didn't expect you to find us. i don't hold that against you." he clutches back against lu bixing, meets his eyes, his trembling voice. he presses against his chest, steadies him with the pressure of their hearts thudding rapidly against one another. nightmare after nightmare, his head is swimming. ]
he takes a slow, steadying breath and lets lin's fingers ground him. it feels like a dam has broken - he's done decently at keeping himself from crying except their very first day, but the tears are starting now and won't stop, and he just lets them fall.
seeing lin nearly die again on the screen, and knowing what happened in that seventeen year block is both horrifying and comforting in a twisted way (knowing he wasn't living some other life but hell, instead). it's also distracting from the horror of his own guilt and shame of the seventeen years he lived without him, too, and he just sinks into lin jingheng and shakes his head against his jacket. ]
I'm so sorry. [ he says, instead, quietly. muffled. miserably. sorry more that he had to go through it than anything - that he was alone. ]
[ slowly he strokes his hair, lets his fingers taper down to his neck and squeezes gently. for a while, he stays like this, frozen save for the mechanical motions to soothe bixing, who is crying into his shoulder, wetting his shirt and making him wish he could find the strength in him to pull him back and wipe them away. but he can't because he's so tired. between the both of them, there are years of aches and pains they've had to grow up without one another to help soothe.
wind-battered and sea-struck ships in a vast sea of the unknown. ]
I found you... [ soft, clutching him harder. ] I found you, it doesn't matter anymore.
[ me just like im in a mood let me do my gay little lulins
just feeling that lin jingheng is there is enough. knowing that he's a solid, real presence in lu bixing's arms helps him with the worst of his nightmares. helps him when he wakes up terrified on friday mornings, always gasping for air and clutching at the space beside him. it helps him when he's scared and insecure, when he thinks about the hateful person he's turned into, helps him when he wonders when lin jingheng is going to wise up and leave him again. but he doesn't. he's right here.
he hiccups. the noise is soft, muffled, and he buries his face in his shoulder further, nuzzling, soaking his jacket and probably getting a little snot on it as he takes a couple of deep, shaky breaths and holds onto him like an anchor.
it doesn't matter anymore. that's all he can really do for the moment, just stay there, burrowed against lin jingheng and taking deep breaths to try and keep from having a panic attack. it's fine. he's fine. everything's fine. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gives this a tag to fuckin live in the moment jfc claps
his fingers curl around the arms of the chair, his eyes wide. there isn't a word for it, because it's both horror and tragedy, it's a man stewing in his grief. he watches him salvage zhanlu, watches him numb himself up to the point of where he has to bite down on his tongue so he doesn't say a word.
until finally the lights slowly rise. he can hear something in the background shifting, starting to switch film, but there's a short amount of time in between.
a cold sweet starts to form along his spine. and as he turns to look at lu bixing, his brows are knit and his breath won't go anywhere, a solid brick in his lungs. he fumbles in what remains of the dark to grab lu bixing's hand before he can even think about trying to escape this place without him.
uttered softly, round like it's on the verge of sadness that doesn't know how to grieve anymore. ]
Bixing.
[ he clutches his fingers, holds fast to his knuckles desperately.
the theory of magnetism that surrounds lu bixing is dangerous, like wildfire, and lin jingheng has witnessed its pull time and time again. lu bixing could see failure and forge himself anew, and finally, lin jingheng whispers: ]
I came as fast as I could.
[ this is not an excuse, he begs no forgiveness. it's the beginning of a story, and he can't tell it alone. but as he waits, he gives lu bixing the floor to speak. ]
I have the time. The means. I can tell you now... [ it makes him sick. ]
no subject
well
he's trying not to have a panic attack. let's put that in perspective.
lu bixing's done a really good job trying to put himself back together, here. with the help of lin and the chance to rebuild, he's been, brick by brick, able to claw himself back together. the facade he's so carefully trained and focused on building over the past seventeen years is almost, almost flawless, and the places where he's stumbled, he's had lin there to see. he's never seen the worst of it. just the cracked and broken pieces that remain.
... but this. this is everything, laid out raw.
this is every horrible part of lu bixing over the past seventeen years. this is the public executions and the experimentation, this is the track marks on his arms, the crushing, miserable grief. he sucks in a breath that feels like it's too big for his lungs and jerks backwards, and he'd almost laugh, that lin knows him so well that he grabs his hand.
for him, this is like torture.
he shuts his eyes when he hears his knife scrape through his desk the final time. he's trembling, shaking like a leaf, and the first thing out of his mouth is a choked off - ]
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
[ isn't it a time to beg forgiveness?
he barely hears what lin jingheng says over the sound of his blood rushing in his ears. over the shame that rips through his system like a wildfire. over anxious, miserable fear. lin knows, now. he knows every part. it doesn't matter that he rebuilt himself, because the ashes are still there. he wants out of this hole. he wants - he wants - ]
no subject
he won't scold him about weakness, won't linger over the days spent pouring over his hair... he won't... he doesn't... instead, he pushes a thumb over his lips that are babbling about being sorry. ]
Shh.
[ i don't want them, there's nothing to apologize for. but he doesn't say it, just makes sure that they've been brought to the same page of half of the story. ]
I'm here. [ the lights dim. we're in hell. ] I'm... here.
[ a film flickers onto the screen. lin jingheng doesn't move until lu bixing does, frozen in the face of his own anxiety. ]
no subject
- and of course, that's when the screen starts.
that's - lin jingshu, and doctor hardin, and. lin, that's lin, looking thinner than he did when he came back from fighting ares von. lu bixing is too smart not to put together the pieces, that this is one of the only pieces of lin jingheng's life that he doesn't know, now. it's the seventeen years they were apart. and lin is -
when jingshu almost injects him, he stops breathing.
and then his lin, his beautiful, his brilliant lin, finds that strand of consciousness and he lies, he lies to his sister, he manages to survive another day so effectively and so brilliantly that lu bixing's knees give out in sheer relief. he's clinging to him before he even realizes it, before the film totally stops, grabbing onto his shirt and his wrist for dear fucking life and taking in a huge, shaky gulp of air as he just forgets entirely about his own shame and fear.
it's like the first week all over again, as he grabs onto lin jingheng and pulls him into himself and holds onto him like he can remind himself he's real. he's crying before he even realizes it, thick, fat tears dripping down his cheeks as he turns his head and shoves it into lin jingheng's shoulder and just tries to force himself to calm down. he's alive. he's alive. he's alive, and he's safe, and he was a prisoner, for seventeen years and he had no idea and lu bixing was so busy fucking wallowing he never found him.
he buries his face in his shoulder and just. clings. that's all he can do, just clings, and reminds himself that lin jingheng is alive. ]
Lin. [ he says, finally, quietly, almost desperately. it's the only syllable his mouth can say. ]
no subject
he stops dissociating. maybe. a little bit. turning to lu bixing slightly in how they're so aggressively cocooned against one another. lin falls forward when he's grabbed, legs falling over the arm of the theatre seat. still, even as he's grabbed, feels the heat of lu bixing's tears falling onto his shoulder—he allows it, leans into it, and digs fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck, scratching slowly. he's here, he's here.
lin jingheng leans into him fully, careful of his bad shoulder, clutching him close as zhanlu suddenly whispers a soft lullaby between the both of them, small and lilting like a finger under the chin. he holds onto him tighter. muffled, again, with feeling this time: ]
I'm sorry.
[ guilt floods him, for not explaining sooner, but how do you even explain to begin with? what do you even fucking say? it's so overwhelming he's been circling the drain between that and the moment on the ship where he'd been shot—
not him, but him. it shakes the pieces of his soul again, fragments. ]
The words don't come easy.
[ he knows him. ]
no subject
he hiccups, again, and shakes his head, burying his face in his shoulder even harder. he's soaking lin's shoulder now, his own shoulders trembling, as he breathes in. cigarette smoke and aftershave. whiskey and lin jingheng. breathe in, breathe out. breathe in, breathe out. (he almost lost him again, he'd been alive and he was miserable and trapped and he almost died and lin jingshu tried to keep him like a flower in a glass dome and lu bixing feels this irrationally angry twist of hatred that's so unlike him that it knocks him almost breathless again and he shivers, forces it back) ]
It's -
[ soft. it's not fine. it's not at all. he can't say that. ]
Two... two thousand times, you said. [ is what lu bixing manages, shakily, curling his fingers white knuckled into the fabric of lin's coat. ] I should have - We could have found you.
no subject
[ he slides fingers over the white knuckled grip lu bixing has his coat in, strokes down the trembling tendons and closes his eyes. he cocoons them in, and the theatre remains fairly dark and still just for the two of them. ]
She made sure we'd never be found...
[ "i didn't expect you to find us. i don't hold that against you." he clutches back against lu bixing, meets his eyes, his trembling voice. he presses against his chest, steadies him with the pressure of their hearts thudding rapidly against one another. nightmare after nightmare, his head is swimming. ]
Don't.
no subject
he takes a slow, steadying breath and lets lin's fingers ground him. it feels like a dam has broken - he's done decently at keeping himself from crying except their very first day, but the tears are starting now and won't stop, and he just lets them fall.
seeing lin nearly die again on the screen, and knowing what happened in that seventeen year block is both horrifying and comforting in a twisted way (knowing he wasn't living some other life but hell, instead). it's also distracting from the horror of his own guilt and shame of the seventeen years he lived without him, too, and he just sinks into lin jingheng and shakes his head against his jacket. ]
I'm so sorry. [ he says, instead, quietly. muffled. miserably. sorry more that he had to go through it than anything - that he was alone. ]
no subject
wind-battered and sea-struck ships in a vast sea of the unknown. ]
I found you... [ soft, clutching him harder. ] I found you, it doesn't matter anymore.
no subject
just feeling that lin jingheng is there is enough. knowing that he's a solid, real presence in lu bixing's arms helps him with the worst of his nightmares. helps him when he wakes up terrified on friday mornings, always gasping for air and clutching at the space beside him. it helps him when he's scared and insecure, when he thinks about the hateful person he's turned into, helps him when he wonders when lin jingheng is going to wise up and leave him again. but he doesn't. he's right here.
he hiccups. the noise is soft, muffled, and he buries his face in his shoulder further, nuzzling, soaking his jacket and probably getting a little snot on it as he takes a couple of deep, shaky breaths and holds onto him like an anchor.
it doesn't matter anymore. that's all he can really do for the moment, just stay there, burrowed against lin jingheng and taking deep breaths to try and keep from having a panic attack. it's fine. he's fine. everything's fine. ]