In Gaul, Antony makes a lucky escape; Caesar comes to his bedside to offer a commendation.
“We raised a child together,” Jiang Wanyin says, voice thick with pain. “You two were sworn brothers.” He swallows hard and oh. Oh, no. Lan Xichen is not ready for this conversation. He is never going to be ready for this conversation. “And because of what he did, there is nowhere outside this room that either of us can mourn him.”
Lan Xichen has been in seclusion for half a year, healing, he thinks, from the way his world was upended that night in a temple in Yunping…
“We raised a child together,” Jiang Wanyin says, voice thick with pain. “You two were sworn brothers.” He swallows hard and oh. Oh, no. Lan Xichen is not ready for this conversation. He is never going to be ready for this conversation. “And because of what he did, there is nowhere outside this room that either of us can mourn him.”
Lan Xichen has been in seclusion for half a year, healing, he thinks, from the way his world was upended that night in a temple in Yunping City. Then, Jiang Wanyin comes to visit—breaking the fragile peace he has been building, but offering, perhaps, a better healing.
Garrupe falls away from the faith.
"Don't," he says, thin and strangled — no, not strangled, really. Smothered. The word hardly left his throat at all, and if John hadn't been so close, just about on top of him in an enclosed space, he might never have heard.
(For the Tumblr prompt "things you said while you were driving".)
Aumerle doesn't seek absolution.
The mask comes off, and Finney leaves the basement behind. He's still not free.
Halloween, 1978: Holly does some investigating.
Longing makes the world bright and the yearner blind, he knows, but even without his want soaking through and staining it, he thinks— he would be sure.
He'll have her, but he won't keep her long.