( When he listens, what he hears comes in the pauses, the flickers of depth burning in his husband and the generations of training, of thought, of simplified answers that Lan Zhan had learned nuance and depth for over the decades spanned lost between them. Still rigid, but having learned how to bend, to see, beyond the confines of social dictations.
And still. And still, these words, painting a very different image in Wei Wuxian's mind. His brows climb in slow increments, at inhabit, at possess, at language so wholly invasive he can imagine the fires of war burning down the sanctity of each body, blood running in rivulets down a face contorted in pain.
Or warped in a different pleasure, when the last of poison sweet drips from Lan Zhan's lips, do you crave that? To own, to possess, to suffuse, Wei Wuxian's brows so high his brow wrinkled in inversion to the concern or lengthy consideration of a long night spent seeking solutions to problems that felt like his alone to solve.
They were never his alone. These days he admits that, reaches out, discusses. Trusts a shared burden, with people who owe nothing to him but their chosen alliances.
Even Lan Zhan. Steady and certain and at times so beautifully thin, one wrong step might shatter their trust again wholly. That it didn't speaks powerfully to him, even when its close brushes steal the breath from his lungs, embed ice in his heart.
Here, however, there is no ice. No lack of air. A warmth, an incredulity, as his thumb again strokes over his husband's neck, pausing over his pulse, as close as he can. That heart, that heat, and is that jealousy? For whom? For what, in the end? )
There are times I'm suddenly certain you ask me things you already know, simply because you want to fight against what isn't there.
( Emotions, he thinks, and emotions, things he struggles with too. He smiles, still small, but truer than many, and offered honestly up to his husband's hovering face. )
They're not creatures to be possessed. To be owned. They're not to be inhabited, to be puppetted. They're not to be craved. When I broke the Stygian Tiger in Nightless City, you have to know it was because that's what all those righteous people, who were not righteous in that moment, craved possession. Ownership. Inhabitance. Power.
( A shift in his old, fingers dragging down, so that he can brush his thumb over Lan Zhan's lips, even as his tongue lathes over his own, unconscious mimic to his husband from heartbeats prior. )
Power can be useful, but it's as powerful, Lan Zhan, letting go. You know the things I crave.
( He has to, by now. Even if he won't admit it to himself, even if his fears are tangled tapestries of truths and shadows constructed in the lapse between years, in the factual and the fictitious, all important, all seen. All learned, when they seep out, wonderful and hideous alike. Parts of himself like rot that excise, again and again, until he too can breathe free. )
Affection. Steadfast companionship. ( A pause: this should not be the hardest part to say, but it is. Red eyes, rimmed and aching with a pain that shattered through him for the losses he can never fix, for the people who cannot return in any semblance but the capricious one that has left him with Wen Qing, heart's sister, and Xiao Xingchen, martial uncle, in his whirlwind sphere of existence. His voice so soft, his smile melting away, his eyes wide, deep, consuming universes. ) Love.
( Comes the world, and it's a fragile exhalation, it's the blush that steals up his neck, paints too stark against his cheeks, the flush of life that often enough he seems to pale to sustain. Deeply embarrassed, deeply vulnerable, over the implication of one word, one love, the wanting kind, the romance he never figured he was capable of finding. Which he probably still captures imperfectly, with each step they take forward, day to day. )
Student, friend, lover, spouse, twinned half of my soul. You know what I crave.
( Soft, peering up at his husband with intensity, because only once had he craved death, had he craved endings, had he seen no hope and only further destruction at his mere continued breath in a world so determinedly against him. In everything else, in every other moment, he had craved life. Eked out or sung easy and free from mountaintops, life. From the bottom of a wine jar to the bottom of a boat gentle on the river's misleadingly gentle surface, life. )
no subject
( When he listens, what he hears comes in the pauses, the flickers of depth burning in his husband and the generations of training, of thought, of simplified answers that Lan Zhan had learned nuance and depth for over the decades spanned lost between them. Still rigid, but having learned how to bend, to see, beyond the confines of social dictations.
And still. And still, these words, painting a very different image in Wei Wuxian's mind. His brows climb in slow increments, at inhabit, at possess, at language so wholly invasive he can imagine the fires of war burning down the sanctity of each body, blood running in rivulets down a face contorted in pain.
Or warped in a different pleasure, when the last of poison sweet drips from Lan Zhan's lips, do you crave that? To own, to possess, to suffuse, Wei Wuxian's brows so high his brow wrinkled in inversion to the concern or lengthy consideration of a long night spent seeking solutions to problems that felt like his alone to solve.
They were never his alone. These days he admits that, reaches out, discusses. Trusts a shared burden, with people who owe nothing to him but their chosen alliances.
Even Lan Zhan. Steady and certain and at times so beautifully thin, one wrong step might shatter their trust again wholly. That it didn't speaks powerfully to him, even when its close brushes steal the breath from his lungs, embed ice in his heart.
Here, however, there is no ice. No lack of air. A warmth, an incredulity, as his thumb again strokes over his husband's neck, pausing over his pulse, as close as he can. That heart, that heat, and is that jealousy? For whom? For what, in the end? )
There are times I'm suddenly certain you ask me things you already know, simply because you want to fight against what isn't there.
( Emotions, he thinks, and emotions, things he struggles with too. He smiles, still small, but truer than many, and offered honestly up to his husband's hovering face. )
They're not creatures to be possessed. To be owned. They're not to be inhabited, to be puppetted. They're not to be craved. When I broke the Stygian Tiger in Nightless City, you have to know it was because that's what all those righteous people, who were not righteous in that moment, craved possession. Ownership. Inhabitance. Power.
( A shift in his old, fingers dragging down, so that he can brush his thumb over Lan Zhan's lips, even as his tongue lathes over his own, unconscious mimic to his husband from heartbeats prior. )
Power can be useful, but it's as powerful, Lan Zhan, letting go. You know the things I crave.
( He has to, by now. Even if he won't admit it to himself, even if his fears are tangled tapestries of truths and shadows constructed in the lapse between years, in the factual and the fictitious, all important, all seen. All learned, when they seep out, wonderful and hideous alike. Parts of himself like rot that excise, again and again, until he too can breathe free. )
Affection. Steadfast companionship. ( A pause: this should not be the hardest part to say, but it is. Red eyes, rimmed and aching with a pain that shattered through him for the losses he can never fix, for the people who cannot return in any semblance but the capricious one that has left him with Wen Qing, heart's sister, and Xiao Xingchen, martial uncle, in his whirlwind sphere of existence. His voice so soft, his smile melting away, his eyes wide, deep, consuming universes. ) Love.
( Comes the world, and it's a fragile exhalation, it's the blush that steals up his neck, paints too stark against his cheeks, the flush of life that often enough he seems to pale to sustain. Deeply embarrassed, deeply vulnerable, over the implication of one word, one love, the wanting kind, the romance he never figured he was capable of finding. Which he probably still captures imperfectly, with each step they take forward, day to day. )
Student, friend, lover, spouse, twinned half of my soul. You know what I crave.
( Soft, peering up at his husband with intensity, because only once had he craved death, had he craved endings, had he seen no hope and only further destruction at his mere continued breath in a world so determinedly against him. In everything else, in every other moment, he had craved life. Eked out or sung easy and free from mountaintops, life. From the bottom of a wine jar to the bottom of a boat gentle on the river's misleadingly gentle surface, life. )
You know.