Wen was not a stranger to pain, and he knew how to grit his teeth and get through it. Luckily, both Caid and Shan had similar tolerances, although Shan did complain about it louder than Wen would have preferred. Still, it was unlikely anyone would hear his whining this high up–the wind had picked up and was shooting through the curves in the rocks, and what was first a high-pitched whistle now more closely resembled a shriek.
Wen's gloves had become useless an hour in, completely shredded from the sharp rocks. Bits of black fabric were still plastered to his hands by a mixture of dried and wet blood, new pieces of gravel being ground in with every movement forward. It was becoming hard to focus through the pain and the cold.
Almost halfway up, a small ledge jutted out of the cliffside. Wen pulled himself in its direction, relief flooding his entire body when he collapsed on its surface. As he did, he felt a light spray of rain.
"This isn't going great," Shan huffed, almost ten minutes later when he finally joined Wen on the ledge.
Caid pulled himself up after, nodding in agreement.
"It's going fine," Wen replied from his position resting against the rocks, eyes closed.
"Boss, it feels like it's starting to rain. Judging by the wind, it's going to get bad fast," Caid didn't bother propping his body against the rock wall before slumping over in exhaustion.
"Good," Wen replied, "it will be harder to see us coming in a storm."
"See us coming?" Shan shot up, wincing as he did, "You mean there are lookouts?"
"Likely," Wen said, eyes opening slowly, "I can't imagine there wouldn't be," he leaned back further, "so we need to be more careful. And you need to be quiet."
Quiet still wasn't strictly necessary, especially now with a storm picking up. But Wen felt the need to include it regardless.
"I think we should circle back to the conversation from the car," Caid said, not moving from his sprawled-out position.
"Which one?" Wen closed his eyes again.
"Uh, the one about maybe having a plan? What are we even going to do when we get up there?"
"We already had this conversation, and we already have a plan. We find Day and we get out."
"Great, so would you like to expand on how we should do that?"
"We don't know what we are walking into," Wen felt his entire body tense, "if I could give you both a detailed step-by-step outline I would, don't you think I'm trying?"
No response came, which Wen felt was for the better. It was time to keep moving anyway. After the expected amount of grumbling from Shan and a less-than-enthusiastic start from Caid, they were back on the cliff. Like before, Wen climbed first, but this time he was more deliberate with each step, keeping himself out of the exposed sections and closer to any sections hidden in shadow.
The first few pulls forward were accompanied by a mist of rain so light it was almost refreshing. This ended very quickly, as the rain fell harder and the wind brought it slamming down like tiny needles.
The rocks became almost impossibly slippery, each handhold sliding out from Wen's fingertips four or five times before he could finally get a grip.
Day would like this, Wen thought, finding his lip turning up despite the situation. Day always liked the rain, regardless of how inconvenient it was.
Wen's mind immediately slipped to one of so many days, where his annoyance at unforeseen circumstances had vanished in the face of Day's unbridled joy.
"My shoes are wet," Wen had frowned when he stepped in a particularly large puddle. It wasn't supposed to rain today, they still had ten or so minutes before they would be home. Surely this would ruin the evening.
"Mine are too!" Day had retorted, rushing to join Wen in the puddle. He had sloshed over, laughing at Wen's sour face, before tilting his head upward to touch more of the pouring rain. His hair was soaked through, his face split into a smile. Wen had wanted to kiss him. He didn't, of course. He just watched him fondly, the way the harder the rain poured the harder he laughed.
Wen tightened his grip on a particularly sharp rock, barely feeling it cut into his hand. He didn't regret not kissing Day then. There were lots of moments he had wanted to kiss Day and hadn't, in fact, most moments spent with Day consisted of Wen wanting to kiss him and not. He didn't regret any of those either; it was more than enough to enjoy Day's happiness, none of those moments were wasted in the slightest.
Still, just the desire itself left Wen feeling slightly guilty. Sure, Day had loosened him up somewhat. He had gone from a strict life to one filled with small pleasures: walks around the lake, pointless conversations, and full meals he actually looked forward to. He had come to terms that life was better this way, with small unnecessary pleasures. These things brought relief to something in him he hadn't realized was hurting.
But to kiss Day? That would be more than a small pleasure. That would be something else entirely. It was too big. There was no reason for it. It could ruin everything. Just thinking about it made him feel unbalanced.
Still, he did wonder. What if when he found Day, he did? Not right away, of course. Not until the other man was safe and home and things were back to normal. What if then? The thought of kissing Day was so good it was almost too much to process, but it did bring with it a host of unpleasant worries. What if Day didn't want to, and was so against it he left and disappeared forever? Worse than that, what if Day did kiss him back, but only because he felt obligated to? What if he thought it was a requirement to stay with Wen, that he go along with it?
There were just too many variables. Wen had already decided it simply wasn't a risk he could take. But it was still something he found himself thinking about often, even dangling hundreds of feet in the air off a cliff. It would be so nice, to be so close to him. To have his hair tangled in his hands, to feel his heartbeat against his chest.
Wen reached up to find his next handhold and found himself touching more solid ground. He had made it to the top, unaware of the time passing. He pulled himself up carefully, looking around as he did. He found he wasn't at the top of the cliff after all, but rather inside it. A massive space was carved into the cliff, the sprawling area holding an enormous estate surrounded by smaller buildings and several areas of trees and topiaries.
The area went back further than Wen could see, parts of the cliff came forward to create a backdrop and then dipped back again. It was dark and surrounded by large trees, but lights from inside the buildings shone through the raindrops and left shimmering bits of light glittering through the grounds.
Wen didn't realize how long he had been staring until he heard Caid's breathless voice from beside him.
"What. The. Fuck."
"This is just going to get harder, isn't it?" Shan chimed in, struggling to climb up beside Caid. He was angling his hands back and forth to see the damage, and wincing when he noticed a particularly deep cut.
"See," Wen said, not even trying to hide the smugness in his tone, "this is why I couldn't make a plan beforehand."