( Was there pain, in any of this? Has he forgotten in the moment beyond the first sharp inclination, when the warmth that follows is a subtle shift forward, holding and held, faces aligned without perfection until they find ways to slot noses past noses, the small, private noises of it all. Is it a victory, to not be bloodied and desperate, to not be bent over in pain, and to feel, momentarily, the shadows caress their faces, embrace their not-quite-silence, hides them from the world while they're not performing for the world to see?
Wei Wuxian stutters back into himself, Lan Zhan's stifled moan lingering in his ears, a promise unmet, awaiting fulfilling. Blinks against the kisses pressed to his face, to Lan Zhan's breath as ragged as Wei Wuxian feels, his fingers shifting hold to stroke as the words sink below the surface of his too thick skin.
Don't leave me. Not again, not now, and he strokes from temple to the top of his head, and down the cascading waterfall of his hair. Strokes like he doesn't know how to do correctly with rabbits, how his shijie had soothed him from his youngest years to those within her time of dying. Precious, he thinks, recognising it as a tooth bearing truth that smiles or threatens or both, depending on who listens.
He shifts into Lan Zhan, just enough to bring forehead to forehead, metal caught between. )
I'll always come home.
( The simpler truth, found in long journeys and realignments of self before this world, further tempered in the trials of this one. Home is a place, isn't it? A place in the heart of those he loves. And while Sizhui has one kind of love, one kind of respect, he's still an unknown factor to him in the ways that Lan Zhan has learned, in the weak moments, the strong ones, the arrogance of their shared youth, the pain parting them later, a drop in the bucket of Lan Zhan's life.
His hand strokes over Lan Zhan's hair, the ensconced flame shuddering in the gasp of a breeze that staggers past, the rabbits huddling down away from the movement that flutters back to stillness, an exhalation of fresh air finding them even here, so far from where the air flows easy and true. Like they must, to survive each other. Like he wants to, out of the shadows and into the corners of Lan Zhan's heart.
A home, as his is, dusty corners and all. )
I'll always come home to you.
( Not Gusu. Not Yunmeng. Not Yiling, which was never a home, but was a refuge, and a death sentence at different times. Just to Lan Zhan, and the incidentals of location be at times damned. )
( After, his mouth raw, his thoughts stormed. After, Wei Ying unmoored, hands delving haggard and sweet, hold deepened at the rim of Lan Wangji's guan. Sinking. He dips his head into the gesture, works with Wei Ying's pull, sooner than against it. A rabbit tumbles into his lap, idle stray — not purring, but burrowing in the cradle of his silks, where they nestle. )
When we depart here. ( His lips smack together, tacky, tarred. He licks, once. Again. ) If — heed me. ( They do not speak of this, do not consider it. Two years of their lives, stranded on a silvered spider's web thread. ) If one of us... does not remember.
( If, and his heart's shrivelled and bled and ached, they arrive into different worlds, distinct only for the grace of shichen of difference — ) Pledge we will tell one another.
( If not speak of this world, then of the tumult surpassed, of the ebb and tide and deluge of their grown affection. Of their marriage, three, four, five-times honoured. Of their mouths in feral meeting, of how Lan Wangji's hands cling now like forest branches, gnarly and stiff over Wei Ying's, clumsy and plaintive. )
Pledge. ( He cannot be sixteen years a widower to missed opportunity once more. )
( Coaxing himself, or soothing them both, or swelling with a warm and gentle wholeness he doesn't want to examine too hard as Lan Zhan's head dips close. Desire, yes, lust, whatever hard words of the physical pull he accepts now is strong, confused for action, and yet weaker to the trembling in his heart. He wants to claim and give and broker pleasure like a gift of the heart, sibling to the bright cut of pain's grounding.
A hitch in his breath, and it's for another time, for a later when they're not sitting as moss on stones, dampened by the morning dew. Now is his husband's lips, glistening; the hurt that forms between them as a bird newly hatched, staggeringly ugly, piteously crying. Desperate for the protection of the nest they build of words and deeds, to allow its feathers fledge, to the disguise of maturity, protection of a delicate hope learning to spread its bald wings.
Soothing, his words with their fervor spoken low and deep, eyes hot, the red of them more vibrant now when tears try, try to stir themselves to eyes. Once he wondered how a man could allow himself so much luxury for tears, of joy, of pain, of everything inbetween. Now he has no reserves to keep himself from the trickle of water to wet the earth between them. )
I will sing them to you even when you don't wish to hear. I pledge it, Lan Zhan. My words marked.
( There will be things he's already forgotten, his nature and his turning away from the worst of things to instead hold closer to the better, to the moments he wishes not to forget until time strips them away, like the shape of his mother's voice, the texture of his parents in their shared laughter. )
If I have to whisk you away from Gusu to listen, bind us both until you hear, I pledge I will tell. Until you hear. Until you know.
( In the shifted paradigm of this landscape, broken and dead and brilliantly alive, wartorn and surviving and thriving in pockets of unanticipated beauty. Back home, in their disparate roles, connected by red strings and blue ribbon and a road that curves through everywhere and nowhere, all the same. If he must take the Chief Cultivator and wrap him up, pull him relentless and resentful from the duties he gave himself, single solitary choice in so many dozens they both made, he will.
( A hard pledge, yet easily brokered. Wei Ying murmurs his approval, and he had thought the scratchy, sharp-boned fit of their bodies done, the next expectant exhalation that deflates Wei Ying's lungs bereft of expectation. He kisses him again — one last time, one last time more — with the dried, flecked finality of a brush stroke that sheds at once formality and the last drool of the cinnabar paste left over. Less to communicate than to seal, he has heard, he will keep to account.
What is promised here, with two fumbling rabbits scrambling to win territory on their laps and skidding, as their sweet paws fail to latch, and producing the hummed, gravelly sounds that never seem as if they might fit such small, fragile bodies — these words cannot be rescinded. )
And I. ( He gives it knowing, but weak. Expected. )
I shall not be silent, a coward, or a fool. ( He will be more than himself, layers upon layers of silks and learned bravery. Part his father's greed, his brother's love, Wei Ying's audacity. ) I shall have you in honest marriage.
( And they will not lose what this hour has bound, they will not be slaves to time and circumstance, they will not doubt themselves. Uncle might disapprove. Brother laugh. So what of it? Better the world betrayed than the world once more allowed to betray them. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
( Was there pain, in any of this? Has he forgotten in the moment beyond the first sharp inclination, when the warmth that follows is a subtle shift forward, holding and held, faces aligned without perfection until they find ways to slot noses past noses, the small, private noises of it all. Is it a victory, to not be bloodied and desperate, to not be bent over in pain, and to feel, momentarily, the shadows caress their faces, embrace their not-quite-silence, hides them from the world while they're not performing for the world to see?
Wei Wuxian stutters back into himself, Lan Zhan's stifled moan lingering in his ears, a promise unmet, awaiting fulfilling. Blinks against the kisses pressed to his face, to Lan Zhan's breath as ragged as Wei Wuxian feels, his fingers shifting hold to stroke as the words sink below the surface of his too thick skin.
Don't leave me. Not again, not now, and he strokes from temple to the top of his head, and down the cascading waterfall of his hair. Strokes like he doesn't know how to do correctly with rabbits, how his shijie had soothed him from his youngest years to those within her time of dying. Precious, he thinks, recognising it as a tooth bearing truth that smiles or threatens or both, depending on who listens.
He shifts into Lan Zhan, just enough to bring forehead to forehead, metal caught between. )
I'll always come home.
( The simpler truth, found in long journeys and realignments of self before this world, further tempered in the trials of this one. Home is a place, isn't it? A place in the heart of those he loves. And while Sizhui has one kind of love, one kind of respect, he's still an unknown factor to him in the ways that Lan Zhan has learned, in the weak moments, the strong ones, the arrogance of their shared youth, the pain parting them later, a drop in the bucket of Lan Zhan's life.
His hand strokes over Lan Zhan's hair, the ensconced flame shuddering in the gasp of a breeze that staggers past, the rabbits huddling down away from the movement that flutters back to stillness, an exhalation of fresh air finding them even here, so far from where the air flows easy and true. Like they must, to survive each other. Like he wants to, out of the shadows and into the corners of Lan Zhan's heart.
A home, as his is, dusty corners and all. )
I'll always come home to you.
( Not Gusu. Not Yunmeng. Not Yiling, which was never a home, but was a refuge, and a death sentence at different times. Just to Lan Zhan, and the incidentals of location be at times damned. )
no subject
( After, his mouth raw, his thoughts stormed. After, Wei Ying unmoored, hands delving haggard and sweet, hold deepened at the rim of Lan Wangji's guan. Sinking. He dips his head into the gesture, works with Wei Ying's pull, sooner than against it. A rabbit tumbles into his lap, idle stray — not purring, but burrowing in the cradle of his silks, where they nestle. )
When we depart here. ( His lips smack together, tacky, tarred. He licks, once. Again. ) If — heed me. ( They do not speak of this, do not consider it. Two years of their lives, stranded on a silvered spider's web thread. ) If one of us... does not remember.
( If, and his heart's shrivelled and bled and ached, they arrive into different worlds, distinct only for the grace of shichen of difference — ) Pledge we will tell one another.
( If not speak of this world, then of the tumult surpassed, of the ebb and tide and deluge of their grown affection. Of their marriage, three, four, five-times honoured. Of their mouths in feral meeting, of how Lan Wangji's hands cling now like forest branches, gnarly and stiff over Wei Ying's, clumsy and plaintive. )
Pledge. ( He cannot be sixteen years a widower to missed opportunity once more. )
no subject
( Coaxing himself, or soothing them both, or swelling with a warm and gentle wholeness he doesn't want to examine too hard as Lan Zhan's head dips close. Desire, yes, lust, whatever hard words of the physical pull he accepts now is strong, confused for action, and yet weaker to the trembling in his heart. He wants to claim and give and broker pleasure like a gift of the heart, sibling to the bright cut of pain's grounding.
A hitch in his breath, and it's for another time, for a later when they're not sitting as moss on stones, dampened by the morning dew. Now is his husband's lips, glistening; the hurt that forms between them as a bird newly hatched, staggeringly ugly, piteously crying. Desperate for the protection of the nest they build of words and deeds, to allow its feathers fledge, to the disguise of maturity, protection of a delicate hope learning to spread its bald wings.
Soothing, his words with their fervor spoken low and deep, eyes hot, the red of them more vibrant now when tears try, try to stir themselves to eyes. Once he wondered how a man could allow himself so much luxury for tears, of joy, of pain, of everything inbetween. Now he has no reserves to keep himself from the trickle of water to wet the earth between them. )
I will sing them to you even when you don't wish to hear. I pledge it, Lan Zhan. My words marked.
( There will be things he's already forgotten, his nature and his turning away from the worst of things to instead hold closer to the better, to the moments he wishes not to forget until time strips them away, like the shape of his mother's voice, the texture of his parents in their shared laughter. )
If I have to whisk you away from Gusu to listen, bind us both until you hear, I pledge I will tell. Until you hear. Until you know.
( In the shifted paradigm of this landscape, broken and dead and brilliantly alive, wartorn and surviving and thriving in pockets of unanticipated beauty. Back home, in their disparate roles, connected by red strings and blue ribbon and a road that curves through everywhere and nowhere, all the same. If he must take the Chief Cultivator and wrap him up, pull him relentless and resentful from the duties he gave himself, single solitary choice in so many dozens they both made, he will.
He'll have nothing to lose. )
no subject
( A hard pledge, yet easily brokered. Wei Ying murmurs his approval, and he had thought the scratchy, sharp-boned fit of their bodies done, the next expectant exhalation that deflates Wei Ying's lungs bereft of expectation. He kisses him again — one last time, one last time more — with the dried, flecked finality of a brush stroke that sheds at once formality and the last drool of the cinnabar paste left over. Less to communicate than to seal, he has heard, he will keep to account.
What is promised here, with two fumbling rabbits scrambling to win territory on their laps and skidding, as their sweet paws fail to latch, and producing the hummed, gravelly sounds that never seem as if they might fit such small, fragile bodies — these words cannot be rescinded. )
And I. ( He gives it knowing, but weak. Expected. )
I shall not be silent, a coward, or a fool. ( He will be more than himself, layers upon layers of silks and learned bravery. Part his father's greed, his brother's love, Wei Ying's audacity. ) I shall have you in honest marriage.
( And they will not lose what this hour has bound, they will not be slaves to time and circumstance, they will not doubt themselves. Uncle might disapprove. Brother laugh. So what of it? Better the world betrayed than the world once more allowed to betray them. )