singlelogbridge | Inbox: Ximilia

[He doesn't know if he'll be welcomed and he doesn't care. Wei Wuxian slips into the bed next to her and pulls her close to his chest, ignoring the webbing on the wall. One hand curls around her back while the other rests on her cheek to brush her tears away.]

I'm here with you Gwen. I'm here. I won't leave you. [He pulls her a little closer, as if to bodily shield her from the nightmares. As if he can block her tormentor's view and keep her safely out of its reach. There's a hollow in his body that means when he begins to hum, it doesn't send threads of spiritual energy curling around her tumultuous heart. On his lips, the Lan spiritual song of calming is only a softly hummed tune, empty and powerless, but he hums it all the same.]

Don't listen to it, alright? Just listen to me. Only me. I've got you. [The words are whispered close to her ear before he resumes his song.]

[ for a moment, she does not know where she is. when. the poisoned green of peter’s desiccated face lightens a shade. glasses gone, his brown hair falling across a brow half human skin, half reptilian scales. one eye is yellow: yellow sclera, orange iris. the other is the brown of dark-tilled earth. tears stream from both.

her arms drop. her shaking grows. she is seventeen again and the boy she loved most in the world reaches for her cheek, tells her he only wanted to be like her. his hand falls off her face.

an unfamiliar, ugly sound reaches her ears. it takes her a moment to realize the noise originates in her chest: from the heaving sobs caught between her ribs, pressing on her lungs, her heart. when wei Wuxian pulls her into him, she goes. hiding her mouth against his shoulder, she cries.

slowly, her ears pick up the quiet hum. familiar. lan xichen played it for her once, the notes infused with a gentle, soothing power like a cleansing rain. the notes do not feel the same here, but music has a power all its own. wei wuxian’s voice envelops her like an old friend. her fingers wind around the hem of his robes. closer, the sound of his heartbeat is comforting in its steadiness. she starts to keep the beat of his heart, his humming providing the accompanying melody. her own heartbeat slows to match. the tension eases out of her limbs. she breathes a gentle sigh. ]

[When she starts to sob, he pulls her closer still, wishing for all the world that he could do anything more than hold her. (He remembers his lowest moments though, and remembers how much he would have given for someone to be there with him. What he would have sacrificed if someone could have just held him and told him it would be alright.)

He doesn't stop humming. Eventually the tune changes into something sweeter—an old lullaby that Shijie used to sing for him—but he does not stop even when her sobs calm and her body goes loose and relaxed in his arms.

He hums, song after song, one arm wrapped tight around her back, the other laying on the back of her neck, thumb still tracing soothing circles into her nape.]

I have you. You don't have to face this alone. I have you, I won't leave. [The whispered reassurances come between songs and then he goes right back to humming.]

[ funny how they have only known one another for a few short weeks. it feels so much longer—like wei wuxian is an old, old friend with whom she has reconnected in this strangest of circumstances. he slotted himself perfectly into a space she did not know had been waiting for him. from anyone else, gwen might take his reassurance as precisely that—a kindness spoken to someone in the midst of unraveling. from his mouth, though, they have the timbre of promise.

a soft warmth starts in her chest. venom takes it in, and returns it to her tenfold. it surges through her limbs, suffuses her from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. a little stiffly, she loosens her fists from where they grabbed onto his clothes. her arms wrap solidly around his back.

without raising her head, gwen whispers, ] Thank you.

[He doesn't respond to that thanks except to circle the hand at her back for a moment, unwilling to acknowledge that this is something worth being thanked for at all. How can it be when from the moment he's arrived, all Gwen has done is help him and offer him one kindness after another.

As he feels her tension soften, his own nerves and anxiety weaken, and his hold on her loosens but doesn't fall away. Before arriving here he couldn't have imagined himself holding anyone but a-Yuan like this. It wouldn't have been proper even if he'd wanted to, not that he'd ever fully cared about that sort of thing. Still, it's hard to picture the him from before being this intimate with anyone.

This is easy though. Holding her and being held in return. It's easy and it's good and it feels right. How could he do anything but take her into his arms when she's hurting the way she's hurting and fighting off demons that he can't help her to battle? He presses closer until he can press his lips to the top of her head, chaste and innocent, the way Shijie had done for him when he'd been young and had nightmares.]

You can sleep if you want to. I'm not going anywhere. [Is all he pauses his humming to say.]

[ here, gwen shakes her head. ] I'm not going to sleep.

[ she pulls away—enough to lift her head, not enough to break all contact. her hands drop on her lap. she fiddles nervously with her fingers. black threads rise out of her skin to curl sweetly around her wrists, her hands.

if she sleeps today, it will be long hours from now. the mess she walked into in newt's apartment is branded into her brain. ]

A friend… [ she pauses, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. ] He tried to kill himself.

[ her shoulders hunch as if she could somehow make herself small. ]

I was looking after him.

[In another circumstance he might not have been able to keep himself from tensing or laughing in self deprecation. With Gwen in his arms, there's not even an urge. He does sigh internally and feel a thread of shame weave through his body, but he pushes those feelings aside in favor of letting out a soft exhale. It's easy enough to set those thoughts aside when Gwen needs him.]

I'm sorry. I can't imagine having to see that.

[Lan Wangji can. (Alright, so it's easy to push most of those thoughts aside.)]

He's lucky to have someone like you who cares about him.

Edited 2022-04-02 01:12 (UTC)

[ wei wuxian may not laugh but she does: a hollow sound, lacking in amusement. gwen laughs because it is preferable to crying. ]

Very lucky. The girl seeing her dead friend everywhere and her toddler-aged lab grown alien goo. He was fucking blessed.

[ she buries her face in her hands. the empty bottle of pills sits in her pocket. she needs to inform someone. not everyone—aside from promising him not to, airing newt’s attempt on the fucking network is the cruelest shit she can imagine. but she has to tell someone. this is beyond her capabilities even if peter were not hissing all the ways she is a failure and a monster at her.

what’s funny is she didn’t even knock her head this time before hallucinating. funny. no one’s laughing. ]

Edited 2022-04-02 04:19 (UTC)

[He lifts a hand to rest on top of hers just for a moment; not trying to pull hers away—she deserves her privacy—but a silent show of support.]

I feel lucky to have you. [He offers it up and keeps his voice soft. This isn't an argument, only an important statement to be made. A soft insistence that she's important to him. Valued.]

I'm sorry about your friend. The dead one. Whatever echo of them that you're seeing doesn't sound like much of a friend. It sounds like an asshole.

Edited 2022-04-02 22:50 (UTC)

[ no one is lucky to have me. the shape of her hallucination is proof positive. ]

He wasn't like that.

[ gwen raises her head, but not her eyes. her fingers curl gently by her mouth, hiding it. ]

Peter was my neighbor. His parents died when he was six, same year my mom did. He came to live with his aunt and uncle, and we sort of…latched together. Even when we got older, he was my shadow. Followed me everywhere.

[ followed her to every band practice where he'd do homework at the base of the stage. followed her all the through midtown hunting for red on vinyl. why wouldn't he follow her into this insanity of masks and superpowers.

blue eyes focus on a point just beyond wei wuxian's shoulder. gwen blinks and the concrete walls give way to the wreckage of the bleachers in the gym. half-transformed, peter reaches for her. her heart drops like it had that night, like it does each time she remembers. paper streamers lie incongruously about him.

she does not know if she saw the streamers then or before. of that night, some details are clear as glass, and burned into her brain like a photograph. others are vague, confused. her brain stitches them together as well it is able like putting a puzzle together with pieces missing. but she cannot step back from it.

no matter the enormous distance or time between them, his memory follows her. ]

I carry him now. I can't…let him go. I don't know how and… [ she pauses, the confession bitter on her tongue— ] I'm scared to do it.

[He brushes his thumb beneath her cheek knowing that if he looks in the direction her gaze is focused on, he'll see nothing but a wall. He wishes he could see what she does though. Wishes he could fight it for her. Wishes he could carry her dead for her along with his own.]

I don't know how either. [He admits quietly, like a secret. His dead are all here with him. Madam Yu and Uncle Fengmian. Wen Qing and Wen Ning, Shijie, the rest of the Dafan Wen, a-Yuan. He holds on tight because what else can he do but keep them here to keep him honest. To remind him of who he is.]

But...but I think. Your friend loved you. It sounds like he loved you, and I can't imagine he'd want you to hold on if it was hurting you.

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