He holds, and in a moment that extends heartbeats into finite universes that collapse and fold back on themselves, bright darknesses of life and potential realised and laid to rest, his eyes warm. Heat, a prickling of tears that aren't one emotion or another; the rains did not always avoid Yiling, and certain droplets had always found themselves swallowed by the gasping, dry maw of its expanse.
"No," he says, fingers twitching, stepping closer to stare into Lan Zhan's face, to offer none of that distance he usually minds just enough to make it apparent when he intrudes on it, as he inevitably does. Wei Wuxian has always been a man for closeness in visible ways, but not the ones that lie deeper, that means sharing fears, worries, and not just the redirections, the burden minding, the telling silences around the alcohol drowning out his thoughts.
"No, Lan Zhan, I'm glad you knew me. Knew the man I was, before a war began, and we all gained new names, new scars. Before we changed, and kept changing."
An echo of Yunmeng, the sandalwood incense, the lovingly tended plaques of each generation of Jiangs that came before. Where his shijie hung now, and the tears spill, unremarkable in their path down his face, mingling with dust, streaking him with mud to take root from. A lotus starts there, buried in the mud, reaching for the surface.
Drowning is a matter of breathing in the wrong way.
"He was an easier man to know. More arrogant, though I didn't unlearn that for years yet. Hiding secrets and telling people to let go of me because I thought it would spare them, that I was fated to bear these things on my own. It was poorly done."
It was not a transgression to any one person alone, but to each of them in turn, the people he cared for more than most the world around them. Even now, even when some of them lie dead, buried or fated to soul shattered endings.
"You, Lan Zhan, I've only been in the relearning of you for these months. Neither of us are the youths we once were, and I won't begrudge us having known them. Or to remember them, when Lan Zhan was Lan Zhan, before he was Hanguang-jun. When Wei Ying was Wei Ying, and no laozu."
He smiles, and it's small, the weight of death lessened on his shoulders, despite the toll that says something wicked this way came, and circles them both, invisible dogs that should terrify him yet. They would be hypocrites, to believe either of them have unstained hands. Not just for the war, but for every step in each journey after; and Lan Zhan, as always, the righteous bearing of teeth and blade. Supported, respected, admired: yes, even so.
"Do you begrudge me for not being that man?"
Yiling, uncaring, wheezes around them, wind through barren branches, dust settling, and the trickle of pebbles that fall and bounce and still again, somewhere behind.
no subject
"No," he says, fingers twitching, stepping closer to stare into Lan Zhan's face, to offer none of that distance he usually minds just enough to make it apparent when he intrudes on it, as he inevitably does. Wei Wuxian has always been a man for closeness in visible ways, but not the ones that lie deeper, that means sharing fears, worries, and not just the redirections, the burden minding, the telling silences around the alcohol drowning out his thoughts.
"No, Lan Zhan, I'm glad you knew me. Knew the man I was, before a war began, and we all gained new names, new scars. Before we changed, and kept changing."
An echo of Yunmeng, the sandalwood incense, the lovingly tended plaques of each generation of Jiangs that came before. Where his shijie hung now, and the tears spill, unremarkable in their path down his face, mingling with dust, streaking him with mud to take root from. A lotus starts there, buried in the mud, reaching for the surface.
Drowning is a matter of breathing in the wrong way.
"He was an easier man to know. More arrogant, though I didn't unlearn that for years yet. Hiding secrets and telling people to let go of me because I thought it would spare them, that I was fated to bear these things on my own. It was poorly done."
It was not a transgression to any one person alone, but to each of them in turn, the people he cared for more than most the world around them. Even now, even when some of them lie dead, buried or fated to soul shattered endings.
"You, Lan Zhan, I've only been in the relearning of you for these months. Neither of us are the youths we once were, and I won't begrudge us having known them. Or to remember them, when Lan Zhan was Lan Zhan, before he was Hanguang-jun. When Wei Ying was Wei Ying, and no laozu."
He smiles, and it's small, the weight of death lessened on his shoulders, despite the toll that says something wicked this way came, and circles them both, invisible dogs that should terrify him yet. They would be hypocrites, to believe either of them have unstained hands. Not just for the war, but for every step in each journey after; and Lan Zhan, as always, the righteous bearing of teeth and blade. Supported, respected, admired: yes, even so.
"Do you begrudge me for not being that man?"
Yiling, uncaring, wheezes around them, wind through barren branches, dust settling, and the trickle of pebbles that fall and bounce and still again, somewhere behind.