Embraced, and a hum of acknowledgement, when for once he holds Jiang Cheng without the awkwardness of a man uncertain of his ability to hold anything living, that period of time stretched long but for A-Yuan's needs, carried on hip as everyone's child in their tiny village. He'd lost the sense of it, with the attack on the road to celebrate A-Ling's first year of life. The deaths followed, Zixuan, Yanli, Wen Qing and all the rest of the Wens who'd been under his care, because the world didn't care about truth, only perception. Wouldn't wait for him to track down the true origin of a curse, wouldn't believe his bared chest, naked of any marks, no curse sign present for a man who had never in his life, cast a curse in truth.

There was no one to believe him but the people he lived with, and they sacrificed themselves for the year he'd bought them, and then he'd seen their sister die, and he'd died, or tried. Tried hardest to end it all.

He wouldn't be in that place again. Nowhere to return to at present, he would take hold of life, dig his fingers in, and look for answers, and he may, he might, he would, make the best of it.

Both of them, in different ways, assigning themselves the meaning: to try.

"I'll hold you to that, ah? You won't have to look for me so hard. Leave messages," he says, tightening his arms around his brother for the squeeze before he starts to relax, supporting weight if it needs supporting, "Or try for strange, unusual sightings. If you think I won't be around when you've been in an unwaking sleep, Jiang Cheng, you really think too poorly of how word travels when you're on the road."

It's been too long; by now his other self would know.