[Hey, guess what! Thancred's actually being good for once and not even trying to be mobile after everything that yesterday decided to be. Which means he's still in the Home Biome, even though most of the other surrounding people have dispersed, and maybe it's a result of Lu Bixing's iron grip on the setting finally beginning to relax, or maybe it's that the biome itself has finally decided it's ready for a change of pace, but the setting shimmers, shifts, and changes.
Where Thancred had previously been sleeping on a wide, comfortable couch in the apartment, when the setting changes he's now stretched out on some sort of gazebo bench — fortunately, still with a thick cushion beneath him so he's not just lying on marble — in what appears to be some kind of outdoor study space on the campus of what is definitely some type of university. It's nighttime, and far off to the south, there sits a harbor with a massive statue erected in it, its urn magicked to perpetually pour water into the ocean below, like it's standing sentry over the port of whatever this strange place is.
Welcome to Sharlayan, Lu Bixing. Is this what you would've imagined, when trying to picture the place Thancred thinks of as home?]
lu bixing wasn't really planning on coming back here. maybe his feet brought him back just out of instinct. he spent most of the morning after the announcement holding a crying hana, trying to help her as she grieved, and since then, it's almost like he's vanished. he's usually running around, talking to the people he's gotten close to. baking cookies, trying to make sure everyone's okay, sending a series of now routine messages every friday, but today? today, he's been almost nowhere to be found.
walking into this place is disorienting. he seems to snap out of whatever thoughts he was in when he realizes what's happening. he looks at thancred for a moment, lying there and stretched out, and he just. for a minute, two different instincts war in his head.
... he won't stay for very long, but if it seems like thancred's still asleep, he'll make his way over, and... eventually, he might feel that there's something being laid over him. it's bixing's coat, the usual brown trenchcoat he wears, just to make sure he's covered and comfortable, even tucked a little in. he's light with the touch of it, trying to be very, very careful and trying not to wake him or touch an injury.
...but after that, he steps back a little, and turns like he's going to leave. ]
[What's strange is that Thancred isn't unfamiliar to these sorts of quiet, understated kindnesses — it's just that he's usually the one extending them, not receiving them. He's the one with the coat offered up to someone in need of a little extra shelter, or comfort, or even just reassurance. He's been utterly spoiled for comfort these past few bells; it may well be more doting in the span of a single day than he's been recipient of otherwise in a year or more.
But battered and bruised and exhausted or not, there are some instincts that never quite quit, and he doesn't stay asleep when he's approached; he wouldn't live very long on missions in the field if he did. So he's awake enough to feel the coat drape over him, and to suss out who it is who's drawn near him even without really looking, and for a second he just...lets himself have it. This rare, fatherly kindness he doesn't deserve, that always reminds him in the strangest way of Louisoix Leveilleur.
It's when Bixing turns to go, though, that he realizes he needs to say something to show he's awake, because he's not staying to hover or monitor him otherwise.]
...Damned kind of you.
[Strange how being injured so badly makes it all the more pronounced, how badly he's craved these little kindnesses lately.]
... he doesn't turn around, shoulders rising a little as he realizes that thancred caught him. there are some things about bixing that are constant, and one of those things is just that - little acts of kindness, because he's a kind person. no matter how he's feeling at the moment, he's a bleeding heart, in the way he was a bleeding heart for his students. in the way he's a bleeding heart for -
("Practice for when we get out of here and you have a bunch of us couch surfing in your neck of the multiverse."
"...is it jinxing it, to say I'm excited?" )
he swallows, and murmurs: ]
...Keep it, if you need it. [ and it is definitely lacking his usual spark. ] Don't sleep outside for too long, alright? Home or not, fake or not.
[And really, he probably could get away with just rolling over and going back to sleep, but also: he wouldn't be Thancred if he weren't attuned to signs of distress from the people around him who matter. So.]
...What is it?
[Except even as he says it, he starts to remember what day it is. Why they were all together the night before. Thinks, if it were Lin he wouldn't still be standing, if it were Nav he would tell me, if it were Ryn he'd look guilty — who was it?]
[ well... this kind of helps, a little? it helps because it's just delivering a message. the logical. the simple. the easy. thancred was asleep, and he's been injured, and he must not have awoken when the message went through.
... ]
It was Kon. [ he says, quietly, almost automatically. ] The young man who made dinner for us last night.
[He remembers the night before, pointing at the framed picture. Yours. How terrible it must feel to be Lu Bixing in this very moment, fresh off of a night spent in his own apartment surrounded by all the people he cares for, all the ones that are his, only to wake up and find one of them gone.
...Gods. That was what Lin had done to him, too, wasn't it? Put him to sleep and —]
Don't go.
[More emphatically, this time. Or at least as emphatically as he can, as tired and injured as he is.]
Stay here. Wherever you're going to go run off to — stay with me.
they'd talked about it, the night before. it's no secret that lu bixing is very fond of kon - he's a little engineer, a techy computer nerd just like bixing. someone as clever as he is, someone who thinks the way he does, someone who could really, truly keep up with him. and thancred's got it exactly right, that waking up to that announcement was like being punched in the chest. forced to sleep, woken up, and someone he cared about, who was sleeping his own home, was dead. it hurts like finding an old scab and ripping it open, like tearing off the stitches and stabbing into a barely healed wound.
that big heart of his is a blessing as much as it is a curse. in this situation, it's maybe the only thing that keeps him from running away, because thancred asks.
someone needs him. the fact that he's tired and injured helps, too. before anything, before he's the headmaster - that time of his life has passed, now - he's the prime minister. and when people need him, he has to provide. he buttons up his misery, finds his composure where he's turned around, takes a breath, and then turns back to thancred, and eventually comes to sit down. his expression is less gutpunched than you'd expect, because, well. he's a professional. ]
...I can't stay for long. [ i can't hold it together that long. ] ...but for a little while.
[He will, though. He'll stay because he's needed. He'll stay because he doesn't want people to be strong for him, because people being strong for him always translates into the thing he fears most, when strength manifests as a shield that breaks and all of a sudden he's stood there alone holding nothing but the shattered pieces left behind. People like Lu Bixing are terrified of strong people in moments like this because they're the ones he doesn't stand a chance of saving.
That is, strangely enough, something Thancred can understand, himself. The one thing he's never been able to protect anyone he loves from are the consequences of their own agency.
But if he's weak, if he's in need, then Bixing has to be the strong one, and there's a terrible reassurance in that. It's not the ones who are weaker than him who leave him. They're the ones that cling, and as burdensome as that might be, at least he always knows where they are.]
You've much better things to be doing, I know.
[He won't stay without an excuse, but even a contrived one will do.]
But I'll need to be back on my feet tomorrow. And I'd rather not subject Ryn to...looking at all of this a second time.
[ he's thankful for the chance to do something, to be honest. something useful, something that he can. bixing is a problem solver. it's who he's always been, an innovative and bold leader who finds creative solutions, who can change the world with a stroke of genius and his fingers at his keys. he's done that his entire life - he built the starry sea academy. he saved the trash space station. he took the hands of the eighth galaxy and pulled them up to their feet, one by one, started a revolution to break the chains of society over the people who were the most weighed. having a task, something to do, helps keep his mind busy. keeps him from wallowing. keeps him from thinking (he was asleep in our house we were right there we could have done something if we'd just woken up i could have done something) and keeps him moving forward. he's done everything in his power to help people in suffering, every minute of his life, but when he suffers, it's background noise.
... so, he's thankful, a little. the corner of his mouth lifts, just slightly, but he doesn't acknowledge it beyond an exhale that might be a huff of a laugh. ]
...Sure.
[ whether that's to the better things or not, he doesn't say. ] I'll get my kit.
[And just like that, a man like Engineer 001, Lu Bixing, can be baited to stay against his own conflicting impulses to flee. Thancred might feel worse about it being so easy if it weren't for Bixing's own good to have something to focus on.
At least this way he can do something, himself. Give the man an outlet. Maybe even get him talking, if he's lucky.]
You'll have to give me some way of repaying you, later. Kindness for kindness — that seems fair, don't you think?
[ and then they scapegoated a child and things were bad
thancred really has the right of it here, because bixing does fall for it hook, line, and sinker. that, and... well. having something to do with his hands, being able to help something, is the healthiest coping method he has, where the rest are incredibly, incredibly unhealthy, so, this is a start.
he sits down and pulls out his supplies, and gestures for thancred to remove the baby slut top please, and at the comment - laughs a little bit. ]
You don't have to repay me. The best way I think you could possibly do so is by taking good care of you.
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w5, friday
Where Thancred had previously been sleeping on a wide, comfortable couch in the apartment, when the setting changes he's now stretched out on some sort of gazebo bench — fortunately, still with a thick cushion beneath him so he's not just lying on marble — in what appears to be some kind of outdoor study space on the campus of what is definitely some type of university. It's nighttime, and far off to the south, there sits a harbor with a massive statue erected in it, its urn magicked to perpetually pour water into the ocean below, like it's standing sentry over the port of whatever this strange place is.
Welcome to Sharlayan, Lu Bixing. Is this what you would've imagined, when trying to picture the place Thancred thinks of as home?]
no subject
lu bixing wasn't really planning on coming back here. maybe his feet brought him back just out of instinct. he spent most of the morning after the announcement holding a crying hana, trying to help her as she grieved, and since then, it's almost like he's vanished. he's usually running around, talking to the people he's gotten close to. baking cookies, trying to make sure everyone's okay, sending a series of now routine messages every friday, but today? today, he's been almost nowhere to be found.
walking into this place is disorienting. he seems to snap out of whatever thoughts he was in when he realizes what's happening. he looks at thancred for a moment, lying there and stretched out, and he just. for a minute, two different instincts war in his head.
... he won't stay for very long, but if it seems like thancred's still asleep, he'll make his way over, and... eventually, he might feel that there's something being laid over him. it's bixing's coat, the usual brown trenchcoat he wears, just to make sure he's covered and comfortable, even tucked a little in. he's light with the touch of it, trying to be very, very careful and trying not to wake him or touch an injury.
...but after that, he steps back a little, and turns like he's going to leave. ]
no subject
But battered and bruised and exhausted or not, there are some instincts that never quite quit, and he doesn't stay asleep when he's approached; he wouldn't live very long on missions in the field if he did. So he's awake enough to feel the coat drape over him, and to suss out who it is who's drawn near him even without really looking, and for a second he just...lets himself have it. This rare, fatherly kindness he doesn't deserve, that always reminds him in the strangest way of Louisoix Leveilleur.
It's when Bixing turns to go, though, that he realizes he needs to say something to show he's awake, because he's not staying to hover or monitor him otherwise.]
...Damned kind of you.
[Strange how being injured so badly makes it all the more pronounced, how badly he's craved these little kindnesses lately.]
no subject
... he doesn't turn around, shoulders rising a little as he realizes that thancred caught him. there are some things about bixing that are constant, and one of those things is just that - little acts of kindness, because he's a kind person. no matter how he's feeling at the moment, he's a bleeding heart, in the way he was a bleeding heart for his students. in the way he's a bleeding heart for -
("Practice for when we get out of here and you have a bunch of us couch surfing in your neck of the multiverse."
"...is it jinxing it, to say I'm excited?" )
he swallows, and murmurs: ]
...Keep it, if you need it. [ and it is definitely lacking his usual spark. ] Don't sleep outside for too long, alright? Home or not, fake or not.
no subject
[And really, he probably could get away with just rolling over and going back to sleep, but also: he wouldn't be Thancred if he weren't attuned to signs of distress from the people around him who matter. So.]
...What is it?
[Except even as he says it, he starts to remember what day it is. Why they were all together the night before. Thinks, if it were Lin he wouldn't still be standing, if it were Nav he would tell me, if it were Ryn he'd look guilty — who was it?]
Don't go. Come back here. Tell me.
no subject
... ]
It was Kon. [ he says, quietly, almost automatically. ] The young man who made dinner for us last night.
no subject
[He remembers the night before, pointing at the framed picture. Yours. How terrible it must feel to be Lu Bixing in this very moment, fresh off of a night spent in his own apartment surrounded by all the people he cares for, all the ones that are his, only to wake up and find one of them gone.
...Gods. That was what Lin had done to him, too, wasn't it? Put him to sleep and —]
Don't go.
[More emphatically, this time. Or at least as emphatically as he can, as tired and injured as he is.]
Stay here. Wherever you're going to go run off to — stay with me.
no subject
they'd talked about it, the night before. it's no secret that lu bixing is very fond of kon - he's a little engineer, a techy computer nerd just like bixing. someone as clever as he is, someone who thinks the way he does, someone who could really, truly keep up with him. and thancred's got it exactly right, that waking up to that announcement was like being punched in the chest. forced to sleep, woken up, and someone he cared about, who was sleeping his own home, was dead. it hurts like finding an old scab and ripping it open, like tearing off the stitches and stabbing into a barely healed wound.
that big heart of his is a blessing as much as it is a curse. in this situation, it's maybe the only thing that keeps him from running away, because thancred asks.
someone needs him. the fact that he's tired and injured helps, too. before anything, before he's the headmaster - that time of his life has passed, now - he's the prime minister. and when people need him, he has to provide. he buttons up his misery, finds his composure where he's turned around, takes a breath, and then turns back to thancred, and eventually comes to sit down. his expression is less gutpunched than you'd expect, because, well. he's a professional. ]
...I can't stay for long. [ i can't hold it together that long. ] ...but for a little while.
no subject
That is, strangely enough, something Thancred can understand, himself. The one thing he's never been able to protect anyone he loves from are the consequences of their own agency.
But if he's weak, if he's in need, then Bixing has to be the strong one, and there's a terrible reassurance in that. It's not the ones who are weaker than him who leave him. They're the ones that cling, and as burdensome as that might be, at least he always knows where they are.]
You've much better things to be doing, I know.
[He won't stay without an excuse, but even a contrived one will do.]
But I'll need to be back on my feet tomorrow. And I'd rather not subject Ryn to...looking at all of this a second time.
no subject
... so, he's thankful, a little. the corner of his mouth lifts, just slightly, but he doesn't acknowledge it beyond an exhale that might be a huff of a laugh. ]
...Sure.
[ whether that's to the better things or not, he doesn't say. ] I'll get my kit.
no subject
At least this way he can do something, himself. Give the man an outlet. Maybe even get him talking, if he's lucky.]
You'll have to give me some way of repaying you, later. Kindness for kindness — that seems fair, don't you think?
no subject
thancred really has the right of it here, because bixing does fall for it hook, line, and sinker. that, and... well. having something to do with his hands, being able to help something, is the healthiest coping method he has, where the rest are incredibly, incredibly unhealthy, so, this is a start.
he sits down and pulls out his supplies, and gestures for thancred to remove the baby slut top please, and at the comment - laughs a little bit. ]
You don't have to repay me. The best way I think you could possibly do so is by taking good care of you.