( This is his part, then. Unbidden, ornamental. To drift his hand up to his lover's cheek and know the affection better earned than the status, and exorcise away each hair, each sliver of dishevelment that mars Wei Ying. One by one by one. Carefully, as if he does not attend to a former first disciple, an instrument of Nie Mingjue's war, a conqueror of Nightless City, a patriarch of a sect fresh-born, a revenant, death-made-man.
You could not tell it, for the fresh, revived softness of Wei Ying's cheek. Mo Xuanyu has spared you a wealth of weathering, years of physical maturity. At least this, that they have sixteen name days as a running advantage, to race towards the solution that will name the Yiling Patriarch a once and forever immortal.
It will happen, somehow, with or without a core. Certain miracles require Wangji's conviction to prove immutable. He does not ask for this now, with milling men and an exasperated dragon nudging their backs and flanks with its great, wet nose, so they might kindly move on and not stagger the queue. )
My son's laughter.
( Pretty, crystalline, moderate, restrained. Warm, for all of it, because diligence is the root and discipline the virtue, but blood too will tell, and he is Wen, he is Yiling. They could not amputate his vitality, for all Lan Wangji served him as model of indifference.
He aches, one day, to confess the sin of his failures. How he was present in body, but not sound of mind, never the father Lan Sizhui required until the midday of Lan Wangji's grief, until years on. Not today. He shudders, softens. )
( He shifts forward, only stumbling for the ache of it, and the ease of which he smiles when Lan Zhan coaxes hair by hair away from his face. There's no need to, nothing demands this, and because of that he wishes to lean closer, to still, to bask in a moment of inconsequence that carries his heart, buoyant, unexpected. )
I will.
( Under rabbits, even if he has to draw them himself, or find those with the skill of hands to show him how to craft them from rags, or find the delicate beauty of cloth dolls in their cotton softness to present to his son, their son, the one Lan Zhan claims. To bring joy to him, for sheer absurdity, because that is laughter delivered, and laughter Wei Wuxian knows how to coax from most mouths, let alone the generous one of Lan Sizhui. A-Yuan. Wen Yuan.
The failures of either as guardians, he can only know his own. Not suspect beyond his own understanding of the meaning of those scars across his husband's back, the ways a clan cares for its own, what parenting is and isn't in his eyes, his understanding. What it matters, in this time, where the sins of the parents are what the children forgive, not what they're burdened by.
Lethe behind them, steps before them, and he smiles, simmering into something not quite content, but easier than he had been, the distress compartmentalised and held for viewing later, when he might act. )
If you're not swift, I might bury you in their fluffy grace too!
( That's not a might. That's a promise, mischief acknowledged. )
( The dragon, despondent. His husband, mind merrily at play. The foreground of the customs points — crowded, sullied, slow. Tanned leathers and slate and tinny voices, and all earth, absent shine.
He suspects, even against a deeper, stronger sky, Wei Ying would have shone bright. Does not speak the words, does not presume. There is affection, and then there is arrogance, and here in the slippery territory of fawning over the man who has claimed the tatters of your heart and promises to stitch them whole lies the risk. )
Mark your words.
( He can be this, smile easily sketched, hidden when they pass under rusted eaves and lattices of pipework, when they're suffocating for the dozens of people around them, when Wei Ying's — their — dragon attempts but fails to create them a sheltered distance from the nearest man.
They'll head to whatever place this wretched world has named their 'home,' and he will pretend not to anticipate the disaster of Wei Ying's next ambitious attempt to locate, lure, tame and weaponise an army of beautiful, well-fattened, kindly rabbits. Pretend, but never succeed. )
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no subject
( This is his part, then. Unbidden, ornamental. To drift his hand up to his lover's cheek and know the affection better earned than the status, and exorcise away each hair, each sliver of dishevelment that mars Wei Ying. One by one by one. Carefully, as if he does not attend to a former first disciple, an instrument of Nie Mingjue's war, a conqueror of Nightless City, a patriarch of a sect fresh-born, a revenant, death-made-man.
You could not tell it, for the fresh, revived softness of Wei Ying's cheek. Mo Xuanyu has spared you a wealth of weathering, years of physical maturity. At least this, that they have sixteen name days as a running advantage, to race towards the solution that will name the Yiling Patriarch a once and forever immortal.
It will happen, somehow, with or without a core. Certain miracles require Wangji's conviction to prove immutable. He does not ask for this now, with milling men and an exasperated dragon nudging their backs and flanks with its great, wet nose, so they might kindly move on and not stagger the queue. )
My son's laughter.
( Pretty, crystalline, moderate, restrained. Warm, for all of it, because diligence is the root and discipline the virtue, but blood too will tell, and he is Wen, he is Yiling. They could not amputate his vitality, for all Lan Wangji served him as model of indifference.
He aches, one day, to confess the sin of his failures. How he was present in body, but not sound of mind, never the father Lan Sizhui required until the midday of Lan Wangji's grief, until years on. Not today. He shudders, softens. )
Bury him under rabbits.
no subject
( He shifts forward, only stumbling for the ache of it, and the ease of which he smiles when Lan Zhan coaxes hair by hair away from his face. There's no need to, nothing demands this, and because of that he wishes to lean closer, to still, to bask in a moment of inconsequence that carries his heart, buoyant, unexpected. )
I will.
( Under rabbits, even if he has to draw them himself, or find those with the skill of hands to show him how to craft them from rags, or find the delicate beauty of cloth dolls in their cotton softness to present to his son, their son, the one Lan Zhan claims. To bring joy to him, for sheer absurdity, because that is laughter delivered, and laughter Wei Wuxian knows how to coax from most mouths, let alone the generous one of Lan Sizhui. A-Yuan. Wen Yuan.
The failures of either as guardians, he can only know his own. Not suspect beyond his own understanding of the meaning of those scars across his husband's back, the ways a clan cares for its own, what parenting is and isn't in his eyes, his understanding. What it matters, in this time, where the sins of the parents are what the children forgive, not what they're burdened by.
Lethe behind them, steps before them, and he smiles, simmering into something not quite content, but easier than he had been, the distress compartmentalised and held for viewing later, when he might act. )
If you're not swift, I might bury you in their fluffy grace too!
( That's not a might. That's a promise, mischief acknowledged. )
no subject
( The dragon, despondent. His husband, mind merrily at play. The foreground of the customs points — crowded, sullied, slow. Tanned leathers and slate and tinny voices, and all earth, absent shine.
He suspects, even against a deeper, stronger sky, Wei Ying would have shone bright. Does not speak the words, does not presume. There is affection, and then there is arrogance, and here in the slippery territory of fawning over the man who has claimed the tatters of your heart and promises to stitch them whole lies the risk. )
Mark your words.
( He can be this, smile easily sketched, hidden when they pass under rusted eaves and lattices of pipework, when they're suffocating for the dozens of people around them, when Wei Ying's — their — dragon attempts but fails to create them a sheltered distance from the nearest man.
They'll head to whatever place this wretched world has named their 'home,' and he will pretend not to anticipate the disaster of Wei Ying's next ambitious attempt to locate, lure, tame and weaponise an army of beautiful, well-fattened, kindly rabbits. Pretend, but never succeed. )