#yet another way he holds XXC in the palm of his hand | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

veliseraptor · 3 years

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having trouble unsticking my brain from being glitchy as hell so...150 words meme time I guess! sometimes you just Gotta.

pretty much all yi city this time, sorry folks. send me up to three numbers and I’ll write 150 words for each number I get, on your mark get set

1. “You tell me, Xingchen. Seems to me people just make up their own rules and it depends on if they’re powerful enough to back it up.”

“Maybe sometimes,” Xiao Xingchen said after a moment. “But that doesn’t make it right.”

Xue Yang shrugged. “I’m not saying it does,” he said. “I’m just saying it doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters!” Xiao Xingchen’s voice rose. “It always matters. Whatever others do–”

“There’s your problem, though,” Xue Yang said. “That’s what fucked you over, isn’t it? What others do. You did what you thought was right and good and what did it get you, huh? What the fuck did it get you?”

Silence. Xue Yang fell back again, forcing his breathing to even out. Xiao Xingchen was very still, almost frozen.

“I can’t help their actions. Only my own.” His voice was quiet, though, and Xue Yang could hear the thread of uncertainty.

“And that turned out so well,” Xue Yang said. (the backyard is full of bones)

2. She was having a hard time looking away from the man in black - the corpse, standing there, staring. She tried to pretend he was a statue. Or a normal person just standing very still. Just Xiao-ge’s friend.

“You don’t need to be scared,” Xue Yang said abruptly. “He’s not going to do anything to you. It’s safe. Watch–” and he walked over to the man in black, reached up, and flicked his nose. A-Qing flinched, but the man didn’t. Xue Yang turned to stare in her direction. “See? Harmless.”

“I’m not scared,” a-Qing said.

“Liar,” Xue Yang said, but he sort of smiled at her, too. A-Qing didn’t smile back and it sort of stuttered and fell off his face. (the people are gone and the place is empty)

3. He heard a groan and immediately turned toward it, quickening his pace. “My friend?” he called, to no immediate answer.

“Aw, fuck,” he heard, after a few moments, blurry and pained. He adjusted course slightly and closed what he thought was the last of the distance before crouching down and reaching out. It was a little further than he thought, and his fingertips barely brushed fabric before it vanished. “Don’t touch me,” said the stranger, a sudden and unfamiliar edge in his voice, not quite a snarl.

He drew his hands back, holding them with his palms up. “It’s only me,” he said. “Xiao Xingchen. Do you remember me?”

“Yeah, I remember you,” said the stranger, but it sounded angry, hostile, and Xiao Xingchen drew back further, something tickling at the edge of his mind like a memory just out of reach. (Bedrest)

4. “So,” he said, and then realized he didn’t really know what to say next. Xue Yang watched him with a look of wide-eyed innocence that said he knew Xiao Xingchen was struggling and wasn’t going to help him. A spark of annoyance had Xiao Xingchen pressing his lips together.

“So what do you do when you’re not…”

“Getting scraped off the road by nice boys?” Xue Yang said with a crooked smile, and Xiao Xingchen’s face heated up a little.

“I assume that’s not how you spend most of your time.”

“Not usually, no,” Xue Yang said. “Maybe I should try it more often, though.” (Redux)

5. Xue Yang laid out his sleeping mat and stretched out on the floor. He pulled out Xiao Xingchen’s soul, cupping it in his hands, then rolled to his back and put it on his chest.

“What would you say if you were here?” he asked. “You’d probably talk about how sad it was, or something. You’d want to try to lay everything to rest. Fix the whole Burial Mounds all by yourself. That sound about right, Daozhang?” He toyed with one of the tassels, listening to the wind outside.

“We could do that, if you came back,” Xue Yang said. “I mean, I don’t really want to and I don’t think there’d be any point but if you said you wanted to I’d be fine with giving it a go.”

Nothing. The wind howled through the dead trees and Xue Yang caught, just at the edge of hearing, the sound of someone screaming. He cocked his head to listen better, but there were no words in it. It sounded like pain, though. The nasty kind that made you stop thinking about anything but wanting it to stop.

It melted away. (a symphony for the departed)

6. “Lianfang-zun doesn’t get rid of useful things, and I guess he thinks you’ll be useful. Makes sense to me. You’re supposed to be the best doctor in the world, right? Other than Baoshan Sanren, I guess, and who knows if the stories about her are true.”

“How am I supposed to be useful?” Wen Qing asked.

“Beats me. If I were you I’d think of something, though. What do you know about what Yiling Laozu did to your brother?”

Wen Qing’s heart stuttered. A-Ning, she almost said, what do you know about what’s happened to a-Ning, tell me-

She said nothing. Xue Yang’s mouth twisted a little.

“You’re not very chatty, are you,” he said, sounding genuinely disappointed. (fall apart, destroy, release)

7. “Go rest,” she said quietly. “You clearly need it. But I expect to see you in four days to report on your recovery.” Xue Yang started to make a face, and she added, “there might be something sweet for you.”

Xue Yang brightened, smile firming up briefly before it vanished in yet another yawn. “Okay, okay,” he said. “Whatever you say, jiejie.” He blinked sleepily, and then said abruptly, “I’d miss you too. If anyone did anything to you I’d string them up with their own guts.”

It was probably a bad sign that she was touched rather than unnerved. (this world is gonna break your heart)

8. Xiao Xingchen didn’t eat dinner.

He didn’t even open his eyes to look at it. Ignored it, and Xue Yang, like he wasn’t there at all and it itched at him, sent his temper sour, and very briefly he almost said I guess I should’ve just let you die then but it didn’t make it as far as his throat before he choked on it.

No. Things might be bad right now but dead was...if Xiao Xingchen’d killed himself it would’ve been really hard to bring him back, it’d take forever and there was always a chance it wouldn’t work. It probably would’ve, because Xue Yang was a fucking genius but still wasn’t worth the risk.

It was so quiet. Xiao Xingchen wasn’t talking and Xue Yang wasn’t talking to him either because he’d just get pissed off again if he did, and he hadn’t realized how much he’d gotten used to the dumb brat’s noise until it wasn’t there anymore. (xxc survives and it isn’t fine)

9. I am not a dead thing, Song Lan said tightly, though questions were boiling up more quickly than he could ask them. Xue Yang glanced at him, brief and scathing.

“Yeah, you are,” he said. “Did you forget that part where you’re dead, Zichen? Cause I can think of a few ways to remind you if you need it.”

I’m not a thing, Song Lan amended. Xue Yang snorted.

“Sure,” he said. “If you want. But a corpse is just a piece of meat in the end. You’re just smarter than most.”

Song Lan’s left hand tightened around Fuxue’s scabbard. He wished it was around Xue Yang’s throat. (Walking Far From Home)

#150 words meme #fic excerpt #confessions of a frustrated writer #i'm eating dinner ridic late so if you send me some tonight i might even get to a few

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lady-of-the-lotus · 3 years

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And All Is Singing

One month after Song Lan restores him to life, Xiao Xingchen hears a child crying.

Or: XXC returns, and his past sins and loss of his golden core are not the only things haunting him.

SongXiao - past XueXiao - T - Read on AO3!

Thank you @gusu-emilu for the prompt!

* * *

One-hundred and fifty-seven years.

That’s how long it takes Song Lan to nurse Xiao Xingchen’s shattered spirit back to wholeness and return it to his preserved body.

And now, one month later, Xiao Xingchen lies awake in a roadside inn, wondering if he would have been better off remaining in Song Lan’s spirit-trapping pouch.

Useless. His dead-alive, new-old body is utterly useless. Death extinguished his golden core, left him empty. He can no longer sense the spiritual energy that let him find his way around without his eyes, no longer night-hunt with Song Lan, no longer do anything other than trip along at his partner’s side during the day and lie awake waiting for him to return at night.

No chance of atoning for his sins. No chance of doing anything to deserve this second chance at life.

He turns over onto his side, pretending he can feel the faint stir of spiritual energy in the moonlight he imagines on his face. A full moon, according to Song Lan. He tries to recall its silvery glow but finds that the memory has faded.

Just like everything else about him.

Something wet wells from the corners of his empty eyes, trickles down his cheek, dipping inwards towards his mouth.

It tastes of blood.

He wipes the tear away. Rolls onto his back. Closes his eyes beneath his blindfold.

No. Not quite right.

Patting beside the bed, he grasps the white horsetail whisk Song Lan has preserved all these years. Tucks it in his arms. Lies on his back again, still and silent and doing his best to prevent his chest from rising and falling.

He’s on the border between sleep and wakefulness when he hears it.

The faint sound of a child crying. Low and muffled, as if the child is afraid of being overheard.

A dream. Just a dream…

But he can’t forget the sound.

“Did you hear a child crying last night?” he asks Song Lan anyway the next morning. “I thought I heard something…”

We’re the only guests, Song Lan traces onto Xiao Xingchen’s palm.

Nothing the next night, just the mournful whistle of wind through the treetops as they camp beside the road. Or the next night, or the night after that, or the night after that.

Exactly one month later, Xiao Xingchen is lying beside Song Lan, mind hazy, when he hears it again.

A long, low wail, drifting in through the open window, a sound filled with pain and fear and loneliness. A lonely sound, full of pain and fear and loneliness, the whimper of a wounded child who doesn’t understand why it’s been hurt.

“Again!” Xiao Xingchen grips Song Lan’s arm. “Zichen, I heard it again!”

What?

“A—a child—”

Nothing. Sleep…

Song Lan is right. The night is silent. Just the soothing patter of rain on the roof, the rustle of the breeze ruffling the dripping trees.

But Xiao Xingchen rises, pads barefoot across the room, stands at the window. Warm rain mists his face when the wind shifts, and he fills his lungs with the scent of wet earth, grounding himself in the senses he has left.

A creak of floorboard behind him, and Song Lan lays a hand on his shoulder. Song Lan still dislikes touching other people, but he makes occasional exceptions for Xiao Xingchen.

Xiao Xingchen misses the casual, easy touch of—

Of no one, he tells himself, banishing all thought of Yi City from his mind, as he has countless times these past two months.

But he still offers Song Lan his palm, as much to feel his skin on his as to allow him to speak.

All right?

Xiao Xingchen closes his hand around Song Lan’s. It’s cold, but better than nothing. “I’m fine.”

Don’t look fine, Song Lan says, and slips his hand away.

“I just want to be alone for a bit.” As if he isn’t alone most nights while Song Lan goes night hunting. “I’m going to get some fresh air.” He takes Shuanghua and his walking stick—his last memory of A-Qing—(Don’t think about her, either) —and leaves their room, taps his way out of the inn, goes to stand outside in his thin white inner robe.

He removes his blindfold and tilts his face up to rain, squeezing the cool mud of the courtyard between his bare toes. He walks on a little farther, heart in his mouth at his inability to feel the spiritual energy around him, of walking blindly into the unknown—

Courtyard. Trees, he reminds himself. As always when entering a new place, Song Lan has described it for him. Nobody is around this late in the rain; you’ll be safe.

And if you get lost, Song Lan will always find you.

Always.

Sweeping his stick before him, he walks until he hits the treeline, walks on farther until he enters a clearing. Lies on his back in the wet grass. His blindfold is off, face turned up to be kissed by the warm rain he can no longer sense, only feel.

Washed with rain, soaking in nature, he’s as close to being at peace as he has been since that horrifying realization that he had been returned against his will to the world he’d tried to leave, since waking up in darkness, stabbed with grief and terror so sharp it was like a knife to bone.

The grief had softened into a gentle ache over the loss of A-Qing, but the terror had never truly dissipated, just twisted itself into a fear of an empty future, of an eternal life devoid of worth.

Song Lan uses resentful energy to night-hunt. You don’t seem to have any, but perhaps you can cultivate your core again…whatever you are, you’re not a fierce corpse; perhaps this is still possible. You can be useful again, do good…

Like a puff of air displacing a flower petal, the thought dispels the peaceful feeling, letting the dark thoughts seep in.

Cultivation is what allowed him to cause all the harm he had. Led him astray, helped trick him into killing those villagers, killing...killing Song Lan.

Even to night-hunt again, to vanquish demons alongside his partner—

Not worth it. Not worth the risk.

Not even with Song Lan beside him to protect him from people like—people like—

Don’t think about him.

Think about Song Lan instead.

Song Lan. Song Lan, tending his spirit for a hundred and fifty years with unceasing devotion Xiao Xingchen knows he does not deserve yet still welcomes the thought of.

Warmth blooms in his empty chest as he sinks into the memory of Song Lan holding him every night during those first terrible few weeks despite his aversion to touch, caring for him like a newborn child…

Child.

No. A dream. All a dream…

Silence. The soothing patter of rain on leaves, the warm wetness weighing down his limbs, the earth soft and solid beneath him.

He’s drifting along the border of sleep when he hears it again.

A little boy, by the sound of it.

Not entirely human, by the feel of it.

It wants something from him.

Needs something from him.

It’s almost overwhelming, the pure desperation radiating from the huddled ball of tormented spiritual energy. Different from how he used to sense spiritual energy, but just as distinct.

A whisper of mist over his hand, as if the spirit is touching him, and he opens the eyes he no longer has.

A flash of—of something approaching sight. A cloudy glimpse of a little boy, no older than six or seven, with tear tracks on his filthy cheeks.

“What's your name?” Xiao Xingchen murmurs. He keeps his voice soft, but it’s too much. The spell is broken. The spirit fades into the night, melted by the rain, and Xiao Xingchen is left in darkness again.

He doesn’t tell Song Lan what he sensed that night— saw that night. Can’t risk Song Lan dispatching the spirit before Xiao Xingchen understands what it wants from him.

Needs from him.

Another month passes, each day creeping by.

Anticipation builds as the full moon approaches.

He’ll be ready, this time.

There is no rain this month. Song Lan leaves for a night-hunt before the sun has fully set, heading out into the nearby forest. Full moons always draw out spirits and ghosts. Fuxue will be well-fed tonight.

As soon as he leaves, Xiao Xingchen sits cross-legged in the center of their bed and begins meditation.

Not just meditation.

He has no golden core left to draw upon, but he enters as deep of a meditative state as he can. Reaches out with his feelings, sinks into a state as close as possible to Empathy, into the hazy borderlands between consciousness and sleep.

A scuffling sound, as if something is crawling out from beneath the bed, and again he feels the spirit’s cold touch.

The boy is clearer this time. Misty around the edges, and glowing with a dim silver light, but clearly outlined in the darkness of the room. His hair is long and matted, face gaunt, his throat and cheek bruised and cut. His free hand is tucked inside his ragged tunic, the other resting lightly on Xiao Xingchen’s hand.

“What is your name?” Xiao Xingchen asks, though he doesn’t dare speak the words out loud.

The boy shakes his head.

“What happened to your hand?” Xiao Xingchen asks, trying again. The desperate need of the little boy is almost overwhelming, burning in his sunken black eyes. “What can I do to set you at rest? How long have you been like this?”

The boy shakes his head, but he draws his hand out from his tunic.

It’s all Xiao Xingchen can do to keep from jumping to his feet and breaking the trance. The boy’s left hand is a skin-bag full of pulp, the little finger severed at the joint. Slivers of bone jut through the swollen purple flesh, bright red blood oozing from around each sliver as if the wound is fresh and not enough time has passed for the bleeding to truly start.

“Who did this to you?” Xiao Xingchen whispers, sick, and the desperation in the child’s eyes suddenly turns to undiluted hatred so powerful it’s as if his frail body can’t contain it.

“Chang Cian,” says the boy, and at this Xiao Xingchen does start back, shattering the trance, because he now recognizes the boy.

Recognizes Xue Yang.

Xiao Xingchen doesn’t speak at all the next day. Or the next. On the third day Song Lan finally reaches for his hand.

What’s wrong?

“Nothing.”

Not nothing.

And so he tells him. It can only help if Song Lan banishes the repugnant little spirit, rids Xiao Xingchen for good of the ghost of his tormentor, banishes the last scrap of memory.

Sure it was him?

“I’m positive.”

What will you do?

Xiao Xingchen pulls his hand away and continues walking. They’re on their way to Xinjiang, where they heard of a spate of violent hauntings that the main clans have ignored. “Nothing,” he says. “He deserves whatever purgatory this is.”

Suffering much?

Xiao Xingchen hates the ugly feelings welling in him, hates the cruelty he hears in his own voice. “I think he’s trapped in the last moment he was—was uncorrupted, which was—”

An unwanted memory: "But the man was so irritated at the sound of his crying, that he snatched the driver’s whip and lashed the child’s face, knocking him to the ground. Then the wheels of the carriage rolled over the child’s hand, one finger at a time. He was seven! The bones of his left were completely crushed, while one finger was milled into battered flesh on the spot!"

Song Lan makes a questioning sound in the back of his throat.

Xiao Xingchen walks faster. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

They camp by the side of the road that night. Neither of them need to eat or drink, but Xiao Xingchen needs to sleep, and both appreciate the heat of a fire.

Song Lan takes his hand again as they settle down around the campfire.

Enough time. Enough pain.

Meaning: Hasn’t enough time passed? Hasn’t he suffered enough? Atoned enough?

A spurt of resentment. It’s been harder and harder to keep his usual tight grip on his negative emotions. He’s slaughtered entire villages; what difference would anger or bitterness or selfishness make in the cosmic scheme of things?

“He wiped out your entire temple,” he says. “Killed everyone you ever cared about.” Drove me to death, he adds, but not aloud. Isn’t that alone enough for you?

For a moment he thinks Song Lan is going to accuse him of being the cause of his temple's destruction, as he had on the terrible night so many years ago, but Song Lan just shakes his head.

Don’t forgive him. Will never forgive. But enough time. Enough pain.

“So you don’t care, as they would have all been dead by now anyway. Celibate monks, a mere blip.” Xiao Xingchen hates how good the words feel leaving his mouth, hates how he can’t stop himself from saying them, hates how he doesn’t want to stop himself.

Xingchen—

“The people I killed, entire bloodlines ended— ” The words tumble out, tripping over each other. “ —that can never be atoned for, that can never be undone—”

Worse than what happened to your temple, are the unspoken words, and Xiao Xingchen can almost feel the pain he knows must be twisting Song Lan’s face, and he’s crushed by a wave of guilt.

Xue Yang did this to him. Xue Yang turned him into this useless, empty, cruel thing.

A child. Song Lan’s touch is even lighter than usual, almost hesitant. Just a child, now…

“A monster,” says Xiao Xingchen, and he rises and strides off into the forest, leaving Shuanghua behind.

Song Lan lets him go.

A month. He has another month to decide what to do. A month to savor the thought of the little boy’s terror and agony and—and—

Xiao Xingchen sinks to his knees, dissolving into a fit of tears.

Shameful tears that he does his best to hold in but can't. Instead he sobs silently, the blood staining his pure white robes, sobs until there’s no strength left in his thin, empty body. He lies curled up amongst the fallen leaves, holding A-Qing’s stick to his chest, the memory of the little boy’s tear-stained face rising before his sightless eyes.

The memory of His hand on his elbow, His chin on his shoulder, His arms around his waist. His mouth on his, the sound of His laugh, the taste of His oversalted congee.

A month. A month of this—

Xiao Xingchen digs the heels of his palms into his empty eye sockets.

He can’t take a month of this.

Or even another night.

He drags himself up onto his knees, digging his fingers into the damp earth.

I forgive you! he cries out with every part of him but his voice. I forgive you! Just stop haunting me!

Nothing.

Nothing—

He sinks back to the forest floor, a single tear trickling from the corner of his eye.

Desperate for the oblivion of sleep, he slows his breathing, focusing on the forest around him. The whisper of the breeze. The burble of a nearby brook as it rushes towards the river. The trill of a nightbird. The rustle of a mouse in the underbrush. He can almost hear the ants swarming up and down a nearby tree trunk—

“You lied.”

Xiao Xingchen opens his nonexistent eyes. The little boy is sitting beside him, staring down at him solemnly.

“You lied just now.” His high thin child’s voice is incongruously world-weary. “Doesn’t matter, anyway. It’s not what I need.”

Xiao Xingchen wants to sit up but is afraid of breaking the spell. “What do you want?”

The little boy tilts his head at him. He’s different tonight, somehow. Older, though he looks the same. He’s no longer crying, and there’s an oddly keen look in his sunken black eyes.

“What do you want?” he returns.

A surge of frustration. Xiao Xingchen sits up, meaning to sever the connection, but though he’s upright he’s still in the trance, still trapped by the little boy. The moon should not be full, but an enormous silver globe floats behind the boy, cut through with what must be tree trunks, black against the white, and he can just see the silvery outlines of his own limbs.

“What is that you want?” The little boy’s frail, high-pitched voice is somehow piercing. “What do we all want?”

Xiao Xingchen surrenders. What does it matter if he tells the truth? He’d already laid himself bare in Yi City. There is nothing about him that Xue Yang does not already know.

“To make an impact,” he says. “To make a difference in the world, despite the loss of my eyes. But I can’t, not like this, so all I’ll have left are the atrocities I’ve committed.”

The little boy gazes past him. Blood drips from his bone-pierced hand, as if it has finally begun to bleed, and wells from the cut on his cheek.

“Did I make any impact?” he asks.

A stab of hatred. The memory of Shuanghua piercing flesh. “More than most.”

“On you?”

Xiao Xingchen laughs. “How can you ask that? Look at me!”

The boy’s eyes are sad. “Is that all?”

“Yes.”

“You lie.” The desperation is back, the overpowering need. “Another lie!”

“Xue Yang,” Xiao Xingchen says aloud, speaking the name like an epithet, and the little boy clutches at his sleeve, staining the white with red.

“That’s not all—I know it isn’t—”

“That’s not all you ever were,” Xiao Xingchen admits, filled with a desperation of his own, a sudden frantic need to rid himself of this specter, to banish it forever, by any means necessary, even the truth. “I—I cared for you once—you made me—happy—”

I cared for you once. He winces as the words leave his mouth, at the words he had never spoken aloud even during their best days in Yi City.

They hang in the air between them, catching the light from the ghostly white moon, quivering and diffident, but solid.

The faint silver light clinging to the boy intensifies as he leans into the words. The glow brightens, brushing his skin with radiance.

Peace fills his face.

“Thank you, daozhang,” he says, and he melts into a shimmering mist.

It’s not sorrow that makes Xiao Xingchen break down. It’s not even relief.

He doesn’t know what it is, except that he’s not strong enough to resist it from overpowering him.

The blood pours from his eyes, soaking his robes, absorbs the red stains left on his arm by Xue Yang’s crushed hand. He cries until there’s no blood left in his body, loud, body-wracking sobs that, for the first time in his life, he does nothing to resist or hide.

The world has changed when he finally looks up.

Silvery light illuminates the forest. The moon is gone, but its glow remains, radiating from the trees, the grass, the soil.

His range of vision expands, encompassing the entire forest, the river, the vast sweep of the mountains and the entirety of the sky.

All is silver. All is singing.

Now, drifting in the space-between, he can sense the thousands upon thousands of spirits wandering the earth, see them burning like blazing beacons of need, waiting for him to come and set them too at peace. He himself is a silvery flame, his bloodied limbs alight with a luminescence born not of spiritual energy, nor of resentful energy, but something in between.

The light becomes bright and brighter, the spirits’ light merging with that of the land, a dazzling white light that fills the emptiness inside him, chases away the shadows filling his chest.

Xiao Xingchen wakes.

* * *

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