( The realisation comes to Wei Wuxian late, where bone and cartilidge and sinew met flesh unresisting but for layered robes to halt the motion from unintended brutal efficiency. Frozen in mirrored moments, eyes widening in fractions, and there goes Lan Zhan, to his side, and he rolls that way too, hefts up on an elbow. Is greeted with his husband's ragged laughter, thin and birdboned, and snow speckling his cheeks. )
Lan Zhan, are you—
( Aching, okay, terribly unmanned in a moment that reminds Wei Wuxian, with sudden clarity, of tumbling wrestling as a child, and unplanned blows that landed and left stomachs sick and pain harrowing, a narrowed world to dwell within until breathe returned to lungs. His mouth is filled, snow melting and bitten down, and he half swallows, half spits it out. Collapses with a groan and sudden loss of all bone to support the angles of his body. Limp, wet mouthed, dry eyed, he whines apology. )
Books make this all sound so easy. Are we just broken? Do we just not understand bodies that aren't fighting? Lan Zhan, I'm sorry.
( He flicks a touch of snow at his husband's torso, no lower, no higher. Reaches out one cold hand, hovering it near his husband's face. Husband, he tells himself. )
Want me to kiss it and make it better? Or blow the pain all away.
( The twitch of his lips, because apologising more for what he didn't intend, or for his apparent guaranteed chastity while his husband bedded his brother relentlessly in his death, seems about apt for what life he never imagined surviving to see. )
no subject
Lan Zhan, are you—
( Aching, okay, terribly unmanned in a moment that reminds Wei Wuxian, with sudden clarity, of tumbling wrestling as a child, and unplanned blows that landed and left stomachs sick and pain harrowing, a narrowed world to dwell within until breathe returned to lungs. His mouth is filled, snow melting and bitten down, and he half swallows, half spits it out. Collapses with a groan and sudden loss of all bone to support the angles of his body. Limp, wet mouthed, dry eyed, he whines apology. )
Books make this all sound so easy. Are we just broken? Do we just not understand bodies that aren't fighting? Lan Zhan, I'm sorry.
( He flicks a touch of snow at his husband's torso, no lower, no higher. Reaches out one cold hand, hovering it near his husband's face. Husband, he tells himself. )
Want me to kiss it and make it better? Or blow the pain all away.
( The twitch of his lips, because apologising more for what he didn't intend, or for his apparent guaranteed chastity while his husband bedded his brother relentlessly in his death, seems about apt for what life he never imagined surviving to see. )