the Taos hum

prompt: the Taos hum (a low humming noise, like a distant bell, or low rumbling thunder in the far distance)

Post-canon MDZS; implied past xiyao. Xichen’s not doing too well in this. 3-sentence warm-up for @ficwip’s retreat weekend!

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There it is again—the rumbling, a hum deep in the ground that makes his hair stand on edge, the sound Wangji claims he cannot hear, but it keeps Xichen awake until dawn fishing apologies from the static, words for him alone, words that can only belong to one person.

Wangji says it cannot be him, that in his thirteen years alone, he never heard the voice of the dead.

But the humming says I love you and it says I’m sorry; Xichen copies every word until the sun returns and hides the scroll (twelve, no, thirteen of them now beneath the bed), a proof of life—life that can be summoned.