[ 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.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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.