Work Text:
watching the shadows drifting down
twilight descends so blue, so brown
and longing begins in this longing town
1.
In his dreams, he sees her surrounded by a dozen, a hundred, an endless army of Feather Guards; a mass of dusty helmets and armor closing in on her, overpowering her, while he screams and screams and cannot get to her.
Sometimes it's his own men holding him back, sometimes he's brought to his knees by the enemy, sometimes he's been wounded so badly he can't move, can barely keep his eyes open through the pain, and yet he can still scream her name, the despair so all-consuming there's nothing else left inside him.
He screams and he screams and he cannot get to her, and then he wakes up.
"Qingzhi!"
It's gasped out into the darkness of the room, his throat dry and the corners of his eyes wet, and he has to take several breaths before he remembers that's not her name anymore.
2.
He wonders what he's doing here, every day he wakes up. He's free to go, he's free to stay for however long he wants, he's finally free and he doesn't know what to do with himself.
He's found a way to climb onto the roof and he watches the stars from here, instead of lying in bed. It reminds him of sleeping under the stars with Qingzhi, back in their youth. He can overlook most of the compound and some of the city from his usual spot, which gives him a sense of calm he can't quite explain. There is no need to be on guard anymore.
And yet.
"Can I join you?" comes a soft voice, and he only inclines his head to indicate the space next to him, but doesn't look up. A-He made sure not to sneak up on him, while still moving quietly enough not to disturb the silence that's descended on their shared home at this hour.
"Can't sleep?" he asks her, and he can see her smile out of the corner of his eye. She always seems glad when he makes an effort, even the slightest bit of effort, to extend a hand to her.
"Wasn't tired," she says instead of yes, and they both look up to watch a few wispy clouds pass in front of the moons, the quiet settling around them both.
Maybe some things can be easy.
3.
"You can't keep living in the past," Ye Liuxi said, and he felt hot all of a sudden, a restlessness blooming inside him that he couldn't control. Everything was so hard to control, after the darkness of the mines and the war and the lies and the endless imprisonment.
His body and his mind were finally his own again and everything was too bright. Too much. Scraping at him, exhausting him.
"The past was better," he shouted at her, the words ripping out of him like he was being cut open from the inside, and she didn't even flinch. Just looked at him until he had to close his eyes.
"I think it's better now," she said quietly, and he knew she meant the city, he knew she meant a hundred things that weren't Chang Dong.
And yet.
4.
If he hadn't met Qingzhi in the mines—
If he had been hanged with her and died that day—
If she hadn't cut off his arm during their fight—
If he had tried harder to escape Long Zhi's prison—
If A-He hadn't turned around and seen the knife in his hand—
He falls asleep in the early morning hours, his mind exhausted from retracing the same steps over and over again, his body aching from doing nothing at all, and he knows that tomorrow will be the same if he lets it.
Maybe tomorrow, he'll go to the market.
5.
He doesn't venture outside a lot. He prefers the courtyards and the shaded walkways between their quarters, where it's cool and quiet in the mornings.
The market, by comparison, is loud and busy, and he never quite feels like he belongs there anymore.
"It's ours," Ye Liuxi told him, the two of them lingering at the kitchen table after everyone else had finished breakfast and wandered off to start their day.
"You traded it away for me," he said, barely able to look at her. "For him. You could have taken it all, if—"
"If what? If they hadn't captured you? If they hadn't been holding my friends' lives in their hands? If we had spilled more blood to conquer the city by force?"
He pressed his mouth shut.
"Where's the Long family now? Where are their enablers? Do you see them ruling over the city?" She kicked him under the table, hard enough to make her annoyance felt, but when he looked up, her lips pulled into a smile. A crooked, tender thing. "It's ours, Zhan'er. We won."
And so, he's at the market.
He's supposed to buy meat for dinner, but he assumes that was just a pretext to get him out of the house. Maybe he'll bring home some of the fruit Ye Liuxi likes.
He wanders around the food stalls, keeping his hood pulled low over his face, making a mental list of what to pick up before he heads back home. Some commotion at the edge of the market catches his attention, and he watches as a group of children toss around a rag doll between them, laughing and jeering. A little girl keeps trying to get it back, her face red with anger and humiliation, and something inside Jiang Zhan snaps.
He walks over and grabs the boy currently holding the doll, his fingers digging into the boy's arm. "You should be ashamed of yourself," he tells him grimly, then looks at his companions. "Three against one. Disgraceful."
The children mumble something, then scatter when he lets the boy's arm go to take the doll from him. They'll probably laugh about it when they're out of earshot, reassuring each other they weren't scared at all.
"Thank you, mister," the girl says, stepping closer.
"Here you go." He holds out the doll and she hugs it to her chest, but she doesn't run away. Just keeps looking at him as her tears dry on her cheeks, her eyes coming to rest on his left shoulder.
"Did it hurt?"
"Yes."
She looks at his face and then at his shoulder again, at the fall of fabric down his side. "Does it still hurt now?"
"Sometimes." He watches her fidget and takes pity on her, since she's clearly trying very hard not to pry. "You want to know how it happened?"
She nods at him, wide-eyed.
"I was stuck," he starts, then pauses. "In a bad place." He mimes a valiant attempt to yank his arm out of something that's clearly not budging until she giggles. "So a friend had to help me. With her sword." He mimes that part too, and her eyes grow even bigger and rounder. He gives her a solemn nod and she slowly nods back.
A shared secret.
"I'm Yang Tian," she says, then seems to remember that a bow would be more polite, and tacks that on.
He feels his face move, lips and cheeks and eyes, and realizes he hasn't smiled like this in a while. "I'm Jiang Zhan."
"Thank you for helping me."
"It was my pleasure."
"I have to go now."
He bites his lip. "We'll both be going then. Take care of your friend."
She nods and waves her doll at him as she turns, and he waves back. Then she hurries off, her ponytail moving with her steps and her book bag slung over her shoulder, and he thinks: she will never have to work in a mine. No child will ever have to work in a mine again.
He ducks into the nearest alley before the first sob rips out of this throat, too loud in the narrow space. He starts weeping and he can't stop, he presses his hand over his mouth and lets his knees buckle until he's on the ground and everything inside him comes spilling out like an ocean.
He weeps and he weeps and he doesn't stop for the longest time.
6.
If all you remember about your life is the single-minded fight for justice, and then justice happens without you—where does that leave you?
What does that make you?
7.
Chang Dong is building a shadow puppet theater in one of the courtyards, and he doesn't seem to mind Jiang Zhan watching him work.
Sometimes he gets Geminus to help him, by demonstrating how to measure and then cut a piece of wood to size and, more importantly, trusting Geminus with a handsaw. It doesn't look like a huge help to Jiang Zhan, but it makes Geminus happy, and Chang Dong probably doesn't have a deadline for this project in mind.
Jiang Zhan likes to be in the courtyard, and it seemed childish to leave his spot under the tree just because Chang Dong started setting up his tools in the other corner one day.
So he watches him work.
"Is this going to replace movie night?" he says, loudly enough for Chang Dong to hear.
Chang Dong snorts. "People would riot."
They're both silent for a while.
"Xiao Liu is going to bring a new stack of DVDs from her trip," Chang Dong says eventually. "So we won't run out anytime soon."
"Mm."
He takes a piece of wood from Geminus and hands it another, its face fixed in an eerily happy grin that Jiang Zhan has never seen on Chang Dong himself. At least there's a way to tell them apart. "You know," Chang Dong says, sitting down on the half-finished riser to consult his drawings, "if you wanted a DVD player in your rooms, we could make that work. Just tell Xiao Liu before her next run."
Jiang Zhan watches him. "So I don't bother you during movie night?"
Chang Dong doesn't even look up to respond to that. "So you can rewatch the one with the baby deer whenever you want," he says evenly, then dodges the pebble Jiang Zhan half-heartedly throws at him.
Jiang Zhan lets out a breath. "Fine," he says, his eyes fixed on Geminus. "I'd like that, actually."
Chang Dong nods and then picks up his pencil to make a note on the drawing. "Careful with the saw," he tells Geminus. "Ye Liuxi won't let you help again if you hurt yourself."
Geminus looks up to give him another eerie grin and then continues its work, but slower.
A breeze ruffles the leaves above Jiang Zhan, and the sun warms his face, and for a moment he can just close his eyes and do the hardest thing of all.
Look forward to something.
8.
Ye Liuxi finds him on the roof and sits down beside him, taking in the view over the courtyard and the city beyond. She nods to herself and then pokes her elbow into his ribs, which he doesn't dignify with a response.
She does it again.
He jostles her back and she laughs softly, then wraps her arms around her knees and is quiet again. After a moment, she puts her head on his shoulder.
She was always so strong, the strongest person he'll ever know, but under the endless stars, on their long journey towards the city, they were both young and small, just for a little while.
It didn't last; it barely lasted long enough for Jiang Zhan to remember how many weeks it was. How many months. It all had to end eventually. They had to grow up and she had to assemble an army and lead a rebellion and fulfill a prophecy. Somehow, she allowed him to be by her side for all of this.
Somehow, he's still right here.
He can have this.
For now, he can have this.