( There are chasms between them that neither see in full, only the fissures that might presage deeper splits to bridge over, time and again, when they're exposed by the storms of their existence. He laughs, and it is for once a lighter sound, the bubbling of a core warmth he forgets half as often as he remembers it.
He does not delight in the public's opinion, ignores it, has fostered the cost. But it does not bind him in much more than the belated acknowledgement of what he hears, and how from kisses consuming to light and sweet, he in turn shift, lets his crown come to rest against Lan Zhan's, the press of metal and silk between them as binding a kingdom as ever wanted. )
And if I want, ( he asks, dark eyes bearing hint of light within their core, stardust captured and reflecting in scattered ruin; ) for the greed of it, to drown in you...
( Eyes that hold open without blinking, ears that hear and dismiss the grumbling curses and the sweeter words of those who prefer a life that isn't wholly proscribed by the puritanically frightened, touch that feels the light and pulse of Lan Zhan's being, the quietude and heartsung lie of Lethe's reassuring bulk. He can taste on his tongue the air and the heat of Lan Zhan's mouth, not a sweetness, not a bitterness. Less bloody than the first, far more visible, shared, and stuttered. )
Am I allowed?
( Moments that fit like ill suited puzzle pieces, pulled and attracted without regard for timing or sanctity of privacy. Perhaps that's the truth of all regard, for him; that all he does is misaligned in the eyes of those who don't truly care, but would make of him the spectacle they assume, willfully blind to what acts define him step by step on less over-worn throughways.
Lan Zhan dips, allows, embraces what once he would not, could not have. He is himself, slow evolution, and it is a wonder, timeless, unaging, to hear anything more than no. To argue and not believe that means sloughing off each altercation as a necessary defeat, to instead learn and grow and tumble backward, the vine clinging to rock and drinking in sunlight and shadow in unequal measure.
There is the knife of his husband, the honed and sharpened blade, that knows now words of apology, that knows the want of softened touch, that steers towards the defenseless as it always has and hope to hold them safe. He who exists in the heart of chaos lives as twinned beat of Wei Wuxian's own, and peace, fragile and fleeting, is what he'd lay at his husband's feet. An eye of an ever moving storm, but true, tangible, a space between moments of fighting necessity and heartache and heartbreak in a world known for its callousness, and for no concept of honour or fairness.
He breathes in the ache that is his greed, of a want that is possessiveness without the binding urge to hold, to fetter, to hobble. To want the chosen return, to yearn for the companion whose twinned soul stands side by side with his own, as he does in turn.
The child, the dragon, the times to come. Death and life, life in spite of death. Theirs, until it cannot be, and that must, will, by soul decreed be decades forward, on the pathways of their own world's twisting roads. )
no subject
He does not delight in the public's opinion, ignores it, has fostered the cost. But it does not bind him in much more than the belated acknowledgement of what he hears, and how from kisses consuming to light and sweet, he in turn shift, lets his crown come to rest against Lan Zhan's, the press of metal and silk between them as binding a kingdom as ever wanted. )
And if I want, ( he asks, dark eyes bearing hint of light within their core, stardust captured and reflecting in scattered ruin; ) for the greed of it, to drown in you...
( Eyes that hold open without blinking, ears that hear and dismiss the grumbling curses and the sweeter words of those who prefer a life that isn't wholly proscribed by the puritanically frightened, touch that feels the light and pulse of Lan Zhan's being, the quietude and heartsung lie of Lethe's reassuring bulk. He can taste on his tongue the air and the heat of Lan Zhan's mouth, not a sweetness, not a bitterness. Less bloody than the first, far more visible, shared, and stuttered. )
Am I allowed?
( Moments that fit like ill suited puzzle pieces, pulled and attracted without regard for timing or sanctity of privacy. Perhaps that's the truth of all regard, for him; that all he does is misaligned in the eyes of those who don't truly care, but would make of him the spectacle they assume, willfully blind to what acts define him step by step on less over-worn throughways.
Lan Zhan dips, allows, embraces what once he would not, could not have. He is himself, slow evolution, and it is a wonder, timeless, unaging, to hear anything more than no. To argue and not believe that means sloughing off each altercation as a necessary defeat, to instead learn and grow and tumble backward, the vine clinging to rock and drinking in sunlight and shadow in unequal measure.
There is the knife of his husband, the honed and sharpened blade, that knows now words of apology, that knows the want of softened touch, that steers towards the defenseless as it always has and hope to hold them safe. He who exists in the heart of chaos lives as twinned beat of Wei Wuxian's own, and peace, fragile and fleeting, is what he'd lay at his husband's feet. An eye of an ever moving storm, but true, tangible, a space between moments of fighting necessity and heartache and heartbreak in a world known for its callousness, and for no concept of honour or fairness.
He breathes in the ache that is his greed, of a want that is possessiveness without the binding urge to hold, to fetter, to hobble. To want the chosen return, to yearn for the companion whose twinned soul stands side by side with his own, as he does in turn.
The child, the dragon, the times to come. Death and life, life in spite of death. Theirs, until it cannot be, and that must, will, by soul decreed be decades forward, on the pathways of their own world's twisting roads. )