( He stills, in spite of himself, caught in a moment of surprise when his husband wastes qi to heft him upward, bundled like a recalcitrant child. It's Lethe's intercession that spares them both whatever dignity might squirm its way back into relevance when he stirs out of the gross emotional outpouring he's allowed himself.
To perceive one exchange of words, less than a third of an incense stick's time, to admit for that long, what unsettles him.
A gross outpouring.
He flinches back away from it now, smile a dead thing remembering life until it sits, wry, and he plants his freed hands and balances his tangled centre and legs on Lethe's back. Recognise the swaying of each footstep, and flinch away from the visceral ache that follows.
The faded memory of his parents, leading the way down the road.
The less faded memory of Lan Zhan, leading the way down a different road.
Now here, in this fractal moment of pain and beauty, and he allows himself to close his eyes, and not to speak. Gift to Lethe the early blossoms of anemic love, a shy, uncertain thing. Gift his fondness through her of Lan Zhan, grown deep and rooted and expansive into hurts and happinesses, with her echo of a fondness amplifying warmth. Perhaps its why Lethe noses into Lan Zhan's shoulder, exhales into his hair, breathes him in.
The dead love, and that is a problem, even as it is a solution. He cares, and it would always have been easier if he learned to not. )
I don't wish to lose those who care for me.
( But he has, and he will, and Lan Zhan has screamed his resistance to ever being held, against any better will. )
no subject
To perceive one exchange of words, less than a third of an incense stick's time, to admit for that long, what unsettles him.
A gross outpouring.
He flinches back away from it now, smile a dead thing remembering life until it sits, wry, and he plants his freed hands and balances his tangled centre and legs on Lethe's back. Recognise the swaying of each footstep, and flinch away from the visceral ache that follows.
The faded memory of his parents, leading the way down the road.
The less faded memory of Lan Zhan, leading the way down a different road.
Now here, in this fractal moment of pain and beauty, and he allows himself to close his eyes, and not to speak. Gift to Lethe the early blossoms of anemic love, a shy, uncertain thing. Gift his fondness through her of Lan Zhan, grown deep and rooted and expansive into hurts and happinesses, with her echo of a fondness amplifying warmth. Perhaps its why Lethe noses into Lan Zhan's shoulder, exhales into his hair, breathes him in.
The dead love, and that is a problem, even as it is a solution. He cares, and it would always have been easier if he learned to not. )
I don't wish to lose those who care for me.
( But he has, and he will, and Lan Zhan has screamed his resistance to ever being held, against any better will. )