( He leans in, taking Qingbai with a soft exhalation and murmured nonsense about rabbits and boys and the moon. Qingbai looks up at him through tired eyes, yawns and his teeth are hinting toward rabbit-large, but the fur recedes, more and more of the boy present. Wei Wuxian had carried him up and away, and remembered limbs, those better for grasping, remembered form, that for ease of carrying: these are the ways Qingbai learns humanity, not for its morals or its righteousness, but for its compatibility with survival.
A young boy, curled against his chest, and sighing as he drops back into sleep, exhausted from his day and its terror and its warmth and its coaxing. Qingshan, with his flails and protests, handled in Lan Zhan's care and soft calls for mercy, paired with equally soft presses of lips to quell tiny tantrums.
He was meant for children, Wei Wuxian considers, one hand gently patting on Qingbai's back. He'll have to pace their child acquiring. Keep Lan Zhan occupied with a babe in arms, stretching over years. That daughter owed through circumstance of happenstance may be rightfully years off yet.
His voice is soft, staring down at Qingbai, when he responds: )
I won't take advantage of someone at their worst. Also, less mud would have been nice.
( His lips quirk, just a touch. )
And Qingshan was more important.
( Their absconded child. What is marriage other than a formality, when neither of them stray, both bind with small lives and larger ones, both circle back to a sort of footwork that once was achingly familiar. Now it mostly feels certain when there's something to face; and he's learned the quiet, learned the smaller spaces. That they're not always frought and fragile and prone to breaking; and he leans to the side, shoulder pressed to shoulder. )
We could, given time. Or force, but the drain on both of us wouldn't make it well done work, only capable of returning to life.
( He leans his head forward, presses a kiss of his own to their third son's head. )
Here is a different kind of steeping than what haunts Yiling still. Death, sudden and unfair and unseeing, and the griefs that followed in the lives claimed later. But... it isn't greedy, not in the same way. It doesn't beg for vengeance. You felt it, didn't you? The gratitude.
( His lifts his chin, but comes dangerously close to resting his head against Lan Zhan, giving in to that temptation as he reflects on times he doesn't speak about so much as dance around. They both do that, really. Both look forward in certain ways, but the past informs the present to shape the future too. Something he and Jiang Cheng still come to a head over, still try to work out, brushing up against each other's rough edges. )
Yiling didn't yearn for freedom.
( Revenge, not freedom. Not access to some saving grace just below the surface in that parched mountain landscape. )
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A young boy, curled against his chest, and sighing as he drops back into sleep, exhausted from his day and its terror and its warmth and its coaxing. Qingshan, with his flails and protests, handled in Lan Zhan's care and soft calls for mercy, paired with equally soft presses of lips to quell tiny tantrums.
He was meant for children, Wei Wuxian considers, one hand gently patting on Qingbai's back. He'll have to pace their child acquiring. Keep Lan Zhan occupied with a babe in arms, stretching over years. That daughter owed through circumstance of happenstance may be rightfully years off yet.
His voice is soft, staring down at Qingbai, when he responds: )
I won't take advantage of someone at their worst. Also, less mud would have been nice.
( His lips quirk, just a touch. )
And Qingshan was more important.
( Their absconded child. What is marriage other than a formality, when neither of them stray, both bind with small lives and larger ones, both circle back to a sort of footwork that once was achingly familiar. Now it mostly feels certain when there's something to face; and he's learned the quiet, learned the smaller spaces. That they're not always frought and fragile and prone to breaking; and he leans to the side, shoulder pressed to shoulder. )
We could, given time. Or force, but the drain on both of us wouldn't make it well done work, only capable of returning to life.
( He leans his head forward, presses a kiss of his own to their third son's head. )
Here is a different kind of steeping than what haunts Yiling still. Death, sudden and unfair and unseeing, and the griefs that followed in the lives claimed later. But... it isn't greedy, not in the same way. It doesn't beg for vengeance. You felt it, didn't you? The gratitude.
( His lifts his chin, but comes dangerously close to resting his head against Lan Zhan, giving in to that temptation as he reflects on times he doesn't speak about so much as dance around. They both do that, really. Both look forward in certain ways, but the past informs the present to shape the future too. Something he and Jiang Cheng still come to a head over, still try to work out, brushing up against each other's rough edges. )
Yiling didn't yearn for freedom.
( Revenge, not freedom. Not access to some saving grace just below the surface in that parched mountain landscape. )
This land does.