[ It wasn’t the river that bloodied him, or the rains, or the rush of flooded banks peeling silt from stone. So when Fan Wujiu wakes— wrong as it is to wake at all, away from the battered cage of that umbrella— it’s with a guttural, voiceless growl: lurching forward, joints snapping as though realigning with the roll of his shoulders, veil peeling back only far enough to cover one eye— the other brilliant gold and every inch as predatory as the rest of him.
Xie catches him. In the way he wished he’d been able to before, when Wujiu needed him most (thinking it was all fine, aside from the heavy patter of rain outside) slender arms tucking in beneath Fan Wujiu’s shoulders, one hand cradling the back of his neck, tangled in soft fabric and coarse hair. A loving embrace, even as sharp nails sink in, as teeth bury themselves across the slope of his shoulder, a few inches from his throat, growling, snarling. Wheezing through once-flooded lungs that still need time to clear.
Xie Bi’an pulls the veil away. Shushes him sweetly, voice like a songbird. He feels no pain.] Oh, I missed you. I missed you.
It’s all right now.
I missed you so much, you fool.
[Hours later, Wujiu’s face is fixed in a steep frown.]
It wasn’t really a wedding. [He insists, countering Xie Bi'an's reverent description of their reunion, and punctuating it with a low tch. His throat is still hoarse, but the only sign of it is that when he growls, the reverberation effortlessly carries. Even if it was a wedding, he concludes, he doesn’t like ceremony. That sort of thing fits Xie more.] So we don’t need a feast.
[The fact that offered hospitality might serve as a means for conversation and easy instruction on acclimating to undeath, predictably, eludes him. (There's also the fact that Xie hasn't eaten in so long, he looks thin as a rail, and in desperate need of hot tea and warm food— but to Fan Wujiu it feels like only hours. Only minutes, since they last saw each other, and he's currently entranced by the deadened color of his own hands, flexing and curling his fingers in alternating patterns)]
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Xie catches him. In the way he wished he’d been able to before, when Wujiu needed him most (thinking it was all fine, aside from the heavy patter of rain outside) slender arms tucking in beneath Fan Wujiu’s shoulders, one hand cradling the back of his neck, tangled in soft fabric and coarse hair. A loving embrace, even as sharp nails sink in, as teeth bury themselves across the slope of his shoulder, a few inches from his throat, growling, snarling. Wheezing through once-flooded lungs that still need time to clear.
Xie Bi’an pulls the veil away. Shushes him sweetly, voice like a songbird. He feels no pain.] Oh, I missed you. I missed you.
It’s all right now.
I missed you so much, you fool.
[Hours later, Wujiu’s face is fixed in a steep frown.]
It wasn’t really a wedding. [He insists, countering Xie Bi'an's reverent description of their reunion, and punctuating it with a low tch. His throat is still hoarse, but the only sign of it is that when he growls, the reverberation effortlessly carries. Even if it was a wedding, he concludes, he doesn’t like ceremony. That sort of thing fits Xie more.] So we don’t need a feast.
[The fact that offered hospitality might serve as a means for conversation and easy instruction on acclimating to undeath, predictably, eludes him. (There's also the fact that Xie hasn't eaten in so long, he looks thin as a rail, and in desperate need of hot tea and warm food— but to Fan Wujiu it feels like only hours. Only minutes, since they last saw each other, and he's currently entranced by the deadened color of his own hands, flexing and curling his fingers in alternating patterns)]