if your heart wears thin i will hold you up
https://archiveofourown.org/works/64291993/chapters/165030907
chapter two: a fevered blur through names obscured (what's another bridge burned)
Shen Yuan has no reason to believe in anything anymore. He can’t run too well, not after that accident, so the other kids won’t bother with him, and it isn’t like he has any help. Da-ge isn’t coming back. He’s accepted that. The forest is warm around him, full with the ambient sounds of animal life in a way that betrays its hidden life. He smiles, sighing to himself as he limps across the path. The nest of Dark Shadow Revelling Lion-Flies buzzes above him, growling amongst themselves as they gather nesting material for their expansion.
There is a small, vicious, cruel thing in Shen Jiu’s heart, that will take and take and take until there is nothing left, and then take more. He has never had a heart of gold, nor one of silver; from the child that he once was to growing into the immortal that he now is, he has never wanted to be kind. Unfailingly cruel and bitter to the end, that is what he is.