( That he tries making sense of the tracings on his palm, the thick brush of the pad of Lan Zhan's thumb forming characters that lack definition, if not certainty, has his mind tugged and distracted while his eyes focus on Lan Zhan's features, his brow, the line of his nose and its dip toward shadow, the shape of his lips. His teeth, when bared.
This is not a matter of fairness, not even justice; this is not sixteen years stretched between them, two very different men standing on either end of it. This is a negotiation between people, whole and fractured and reknit on their own.
Will he? He doesn't need to. Whatever ribbons tied around wrists, Lan Zhan hadn't expected him to wait, to accept, to take in one selfishness in exchange for another, unknowing then known. To choose, daily, what it is they are for each other, what form of support that takes, what demands they make, what they refuse or accept. They, unlike the watery dead, are not bound to singular truths, to clawing ends. What they drown in is, so far, a choice.
His hand closes around that thumb, stilling it, lips curved enough to suggest a smile without dedicating to one. )
I'll wait. For now.
( But not forever, because in nothing can be promise something as impossible as that. Yet to not demand secrets from a man who takes pleasure in declaring Wei Wuxian no longer has any? Oh, pride would say, this is no level playing field, but wisdom notes it never was.
He will learn, or he will not. What matters more is what they learn together... more or less. )
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This is not a matter of fairness, not even justice; this is not sixteen years stretched between them, two very different men standing on either end of it. This is a negotiation between people, whole and fractured and reknit on their own.
Will he? He doesn't need to. Whatever ribbons tied around wrists, Lan Zhan hadn't expected him to wait, to accept, to take in one selfishness in exchange for another, unknowing then known. To choose, daily, what it is they are for each other, what form of support that takes, what demands they make, what they refuse or accept. They, unlike the watery dead, are not bound to singular truths, to clawing ends. What they drown in is, so far, a choice.
His hand closes around that thumb, stilling it, lips curved enough to suggest a smile without dedicating to one. )
I'll wait. For now.
( But not forever, because in nothing can be promise something as impossible as that. Yet to not demand secrets from a man who takes pleasure in declaring Wei Wuxian no longer has any? Oh, pride would say, this is no level playing field, but wisdom notes it never was.
He will learn, or he will not. What matters more is what they learn together... more or less. )